Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to thank those members who have contributed to this debate. The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017 contains a significant package of reforms to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. These reforms are designed to simplify the law and better deal with anticompetitive conduct while supporting pro-competitive behaviour. These reforms will strengthen Australia's competition law to ultimately improve the long-term welfare of consumers, businesses and the economy. This bill implements a significant number of the competition law reforms recommended by the independent Harper Competition policy review, initiated by this government, and agreed to by the government in its response. It also implements the recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its 2013 inquiry into the National Access Regime, which the government accepted in its response to the Harper review.

The reforms in this bill are sensible and should not be controversial. Unfortunately, however, the Labor Party, at the last minute, have chosen, cynically, to oppose schedule 6 of this bill. Schedule 6 simply does this: it proposes to align the penalties for the breaches of secondary boycott provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act to the same level as other breaches of competition law—that's all—as recommended by the Harper review and the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. What the Labor Party are seeking to do is maintain a special deal for secondary boycotts in competition law. We're used to the Labor Party wanting special deals for unions. They voted against ending corrupt payments to unions, in this chamber and in the other, and now they're looking for another special deal. They want to lock in secondary boycott penalties at a lower level than that which applies to any other breaches of competition law, and they want to do so against the recommendations of the Harper review and against the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. They're happy to protect unions that want to go down this path at the expense of small businesses, workers, consumers and the wider economy.

Workers are customers. Workers benefit from strong competition laws that make our markets work well for all customers, and they should be protected against the sorts of practices that unions engage in to frustrate small business, large business and their customers in getting the best deal possible in competitive markets. I remain hopeful that the rest of the parliament will support these sensible reforms to align the penalties for illegal secondary boycotts with other breaches of the act. No special deals for the unions will come from this side of the chamber. But for the Labor Party it is core business to continue to enshrine the sorts of protections that they seek to simply pursue their own agendas.

I note that the commencement of this bill is linked to the commencement of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2016, which enacts significant reforms to section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010—the misuse of market power provision, as it is known. I look forward to this bill passing the parliament, allowing that new section 46 to come into effect as soon as possible. The new section 46 will ensure that our laws promote strong competition in our markets and a level playing field for businesses, including over two million small businesses, to the ultimate benefit of Australian consumers. It will better target anticompetitive conduct, better support pro-competitive conduct and facilitate more-reliable enforcement. Overall, the new section 46 will benefit customers and the economy by giving all businesses a better opportunity to compete on their merits.

Once again, I am disappointed that the Labor Party chose not to side with small business when it came to this matter and chose to work against competition reforms that have been a generation in coming and are being delivered by this government. Once again, the Labor Party are standing in the way of strong competition laws that protect Australian customers, because they like a big, cosy deal between big unions and big business. That's the big deal: big unions, big business and big Labor. That's what it means, and that's what they're going to want to vote for in this place, as they always do. But the Turnbull government will get on with the job of delivering these sensible reforms, ploughing on with these sensible reforms and looking forward to the support of the other place to ensure that this new change to section 46 becomes law.

As recommended by the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee, I take this opportunity to table an addendum to the explanatory memorandum of the bill, which includes additional information relating to schedule 11 of the bill. I present a copy of the addendum for the information of members. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

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