Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

(20)  Schedule 1, page 155 (after line 15), after item 195, insert:

195A  After section 152EO

Insert:

        (1)    Before 30 June 2014, the Minister must cause to be conducted a review of the operation of:

             (a)    this Part; and

             (b)    the remaining provisions of this Act so far as they relate to this Part.

        (2)    A review under subsection (1) must make provision for public consultation.

        (3)    The Minister must cause to be prepared a report of a review under subsection (1).

        (4)    The Minister must cause copies of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the completion of the preparation of the report.

We are proposing a review of amendments to the Trade Practices Act after a period of three years. We propose that before 30 June 2014 the minister reviews the operation of this part of the act that we are amending and the remaining provisions of the act.

I think it dovetails quite nicely with some of the provisions that Senator Xenophon had inserted about rolling reviews, but this one would be conducted by the minister and so we would get a view of whether the restructure of the market is actually working, whether people are getting burnt and whether competition principles are being preserved and so on.

A couple of years after it has been signed it will effectively examine whether the access regime is functioning appropriately, principally because the bill grants such wide discretion to the ACCC—I think that is an argument that everybody has made in here over the last couple of days—to the degree that even rights to procedural fairness and merits review by the Competition Tribunal have been removed.

We acknowledge the reasoning behind those amendments but remain concerned that in solving one problem—that is, removing the ability of the incumbent to mire access determinations in endless procedural delays—we will in fact have removed two avenues of redress which the industry may well later regret. A formal review will allow the government to assess whether the new access regime is functioning as intended, and we propose that it be undertaken before 30 June 2014 and then be provided directly to parliament within 15 days of its receipt by the minister.