Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I just want to sum up in the few minutes left. Schedule 8 of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017 allows a corporation or a person to notify the ACCC of a resale price maintenance agreement as an alternative to seeking authorisation from the commission. It is clear that in today's marketplace this is an appropriate change, because the notification available for resale price maintenance conduct in many circumstances is actually procompetitive and the notification process is a much quicker and less expensive means of obtaining an exemption for the authorisation. This is a very welcome step—another step that this coalition government is taking to support small business.

Also in schedule 6 are increased penalties for secondary boycotts. Secondary boycotts clearly have nothing to do with the right to strike. Secondary boycotts by themselves are harmful to trading freedom, they are harmful to competition and they warrant a very significant penalty. If we want to drive up wage growth in this country, it's about becoming more productive. We need to become a more productive nation. If groups are able to engage in secondary boycotts, that will dampen the productivity of this nation.

As I said, this is not about stopping someone's right to strike. A secondary boycott is where someone coerces and threatens a third party, which is often an employer, and puts pressure on them to cease trading with a fourth person—and that is often a small business. This damages the economy. It is absolutely correct that we increase penalties for that activity if we want to have a productive economy where people will put their money on the line—put their capital on the line—take business risks and employ people without fear that they are going to be victim of a secondary boycott. So I commend that section of this bill to the House.

However, I would note we still have some more work to do. We still have no effective provisions to prevent anticompetitive price discrimination in this nation. The US has had the Robinson-Patman Act for many, many years, which gives small business an opportunity. The US Federal Trade Commission said of that Robinson-Patman Act:

… unfair business practices, price discrimination most directly denies to small business an equal opportunity to live and grow on the basis of efficiency. Such opportunity is the very essence of the competitive economic system which our antitrust laws—

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