Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

In summing up and closing the second reading contributions on the Competition and Consumer Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, I firstly thank Senator Ryan. I will make some remarks in response to a couple of the points Senator Ryan made, but in thanking him I do acknowledge that he did stick substantially to the issue before the chair, unlike some of his colleagues. He made a useful contribution to the consideration of this legislation.

This bill will strengthen and clarify Australia's competition and consumer laws, which are designed to improve the welfare of Australians. The bill makes two important changes. The first general point I would make in response to one of Senator Ryan's arguments is that we do not overstate the consequences of this legislation. The changes are important, but we certainly do not overclaim what the impact of these two changes will be.

Firstly, the bill will enact laws to deal with creeping acquisitions by amending the mergers and acquisitions provisions in section 50 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. The bill will remove the requirement that a market in which the competition effects of a merger or acquisition are assessed must be a substantial market. The amendments will also ensure that the courts and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, can consider the competitive effects of a merger or acquisition in any market.

Secondly, the bill improves and simplifies the unconscionable conduct provisions of the Australian Consumer Law and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001. The bill will assist consumers, businesses, regulators and the courts through inserting interpretive principles which will clarify the meaning of unconscionable conduct. The bill will also unify the business and consumer related provisions. These amendments clarify the parliament's intention as to how the unconscionable conduct law should apply. They will help the ACCC and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to take more effective enforcement and compliance action. The bill also makes minor technical amendments to correct a small number of drafting errors which arose in the Trade Practices Amendment (Australian Consumer Law) Act (No. 2) 2010.

I will make a couple of concluding remarks. Firstly, I do not agree with the level of Senator Ryan's critique. I think it is important to point out that, not just in the context of this legislation, this government over the past four years has taken effective steps in a range of consumer law activity. Not the least of these, of course, is the important legislation known as the Australian Consumer Law. I do not intend to go into that in detail, given the limited time today, but I would point out that this government, for which I have some responsibilities in my deregulatory ministerial capacity, has taken a number of significant steps in moving towards a seamless national economy and in protecting consumers. That is well illustrated by the Australian Consumer Law and by the transfer, with the agreement of the states, of responsibilities in the last significant remaining areas of financial services regulation and supervision. So I would argue that this government has taken a number of effective initiatives with respect to competition and consumer laws in this country, of which this piece of legislation represents a part.

Senator Ryan stated a number of concerns. One in particular was the presence in our marketplace of what are known as the 'big two' retailers and their growth in market share over a long period of time. I note that he expressed some concerns about the trend and also referred to the need to do more with respect to this issue. Senator Ryan, I look forward to a policy contribution from the opposition in this regard. I look forward to any policy announcement from those opposite. I think it should be pointed out, as Senator Ryan's National Party colleagues have pointed out, that over many years, including the almost 12 years they were in government, this trend was rapidly accentuated under the previous Liberal-National Party government. Despite the stated concerns of some in the opposition, particularly those in the National Party, they did nothing about it. So we do look forward to the development of effective policy from the Liberal-National Party in this regard and in other areas of competition. Perhaps in the spirit of Christmas goodwill, as we are approaching that time of the year, the Liberal-National Party will give some consideration to actually coming up with a policy or two over the break, rather than continuing their very negative constant attack and critique and basically saying no to anything the government does.

The final contribution I want to make in this debate is to thank the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. It has done some good work under successive chairs.