Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Economics, I present the committee's report entitled Review of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Annual Reports 2019 and 2020, together with the minutes of proceedings. The ACCC and the Australian Energy Regulator appeared in virtual hearings before the Economics Committee on 23 October 2020 and 24 February 2021. The committee hearings were both well attended. I thank the regulators for their involvement and their eagerness to answer some of the inquiries from committee members, which were reflecting much of the concern that we found in the Australian community.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the economy and prompted significant changes to the regulatory work and priorities of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The challenges presented by the pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis forced the ACCC to authorise behaviour that would normally be considered anticompetitive. For example, the ACCC temporary market authorisations have allowed companies both to cooperate and to coordinate their responses, which includes banks coordinating on deferring mortgage repayments in the interests of consumers and the broader economy.

I would like to take a moment to reflect on the fact that Australia's inflation is relatively muted, generally speaking. In comparable economies, specifically the United States, inflation is running at above six per cent at the moment, whereas in Australia it is within the target band of two to three per cent. It is possibly the case that the reason for this has been the problems with the supply chain management in the United States, which Australia, despite the behaviour of the unions, has managed to avoid.

It is of great concern that, when we look at some of the economic headwinds that Australia faces at this point in time, we see that the union movement, instead of helping their fellow Australians, are instead taking advantage by running rolling strikes, whether it's the New South Wales Teachers Federation, who represent some of the best paid teachers in the world, or the MUA, which is now part of the CFMMEU—the union whose letters keep growing; soon the CFMMEU will have taken over the entire alphabet, if we're not careful, and then we will need a competition policy issued on protecting the alphabet from takeover by the union movement. When their fellow Australians are finding strains, when the economy is under pressure, this is the moment that the CFMMEU have decided to have a bunch of rolling strikes to put pressure on the Australian economy.

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