Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "the House declines to give the bill a second reading, and:

(1) condemns the Government for its belated action to address the anti-competitive price signalling 'gap' in Australia's competition law;

(2) notes that the bill only arose following Coalition leadership to introduce the Competition and Consumer (Price Signalling) Amendment Bill 2010 as a private member's bill into this House;

(3) recognises the assessment by academics and leading competition law practitioners that the Coalition's bill is superior to the Government's bill and should be brought on for debate in the House;

(4) records its concern about the Government's failure to undertake proper and meaningful consultation on the preparation of its bill, or to allow the House Economics Committee to carry out its work to examine the bill and consider public submissions;

(5) notes the particular flaws in the Government's bill in that it:

(a) recklessly creates a per se liability for private communications without adequately justifying this approach in terms of economic policy or competition law principles;

(b) ignores that sound competition law should wherever possible have an economy wide application unless clear justification is provided to deviate from this settled approach;

(c) includes sector-specific application and per se prohibitions that give rise to a complex task of identifying all conceivable business transactions and conduct that have a legitimate business justification, as an exhaustive list of exemptions is manifestly incomplete;

(d) risks consumer and economic detriment by failing to adequately differentiate between information sharing that may be pro-consumer and pro-competitive from conduct that is clearly not; and

(e) creates uncertainty about which sectors and/or markets will be subject to the bill into the future, with the basis on which the application of the provisions will be extended remaining a substantial economic concern; and

(6) notes that these substantial deficiencies in the bill and their likely detriment to the Australian economy and the well-being of the Australian people means that this bill should not be passed in this form."

Close examination of the Competition and Consumer Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2011 is essential and incredibly important. The government's own explanatory memorandum concedes that the bill contains new concepts and key features that have no equivalent in the current law. By Labor's tactical man­oeuvrings, the government's bill has been spared the kind of close assessment and analytical rigour a change of economic regulation of this kind warrants. The government has truncated the work of the appointed Standing Committee on Econ­omics, disrespecting those who made considered submissions and dishonouring this parliament.

Despite being denied any opportunity to properly consider the government's bill or submissions on it, government members recommended that the bill pass unaltered. This was either a sense of a parliamentary committee made of up of clairvoyants able to foresee what they might have thought had they bothered to examine the evidence or a compliant committee where government members simply do what their government masters direct them to do. Thankfully, though, good sense has prevailed. Just as the Treasurer left his Labor colleagues on Standing Committee on Economics hanging with his own amendment to the bill, we had some constructive discussions regarding the consideration in detail amendments to the bill that have been circulated in my name.

The amendments that the coalition brought forward showed an interest in and a responsiveness to the serious concerns raised by stakeholders, expert competition lawyers, leading academics and practitioners. I am pleased to say that I think we found a meeting of minds with the government on a number of those amendments. I understand the government will be bringing forward its own version of those amendments, which will address a number of the concerns that we have raised. Those concerns include the need for an ordinary course of business exception for conduct that may be captured by the per se prohibition, a number of specific provisions relating to nominating the process where other markets may be captured by this law and also some specific amendments relating to the financial services sector. I am optimistic that we can find common ground in that area and move forward collaboratively on this bill. (Time expired)

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