JFDI, MBIE!

There is a bit of a ruckus going on about the performance of MBIE, the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment, based on this report. I'm not interested in the point-scoring argy-bargy, though for what little it's worth I agree with the reviewers who noted (p58) their "impression of highly motivated and capable staff, doing things the hard way because they are struggling both to prioritise their efforts and to see the broader strategic context for their work".

What's irked me a bit is that there are three ideas that have gone into the MBIE hopper and haven't come out yet, even though all of them look good (or even very good), would be easy to implement, and would make the New Zealand economy a more competitive marketplace.

The first one, recommended by our Productivity Commission, and conveniently investigated in detail in an Australian context by the Aussies' Competition Policy Review, is to review s36 of the Commerce Act, the bit that aims at stopping companies with market power from interfering with competition. My conclusion, on reading the Aussie report, was "Save the time and money" on our own reinvention of the wheel at MBIE. "I say we send the Aussie Review members a thank you note and a couple of cases of our best Pinot Noir, declare victory, and go home". I know there are people in MBIE, and elsewhere, who thinks it's a big, complex issue, despite the Aussies having fortuitously solved it for us. It isn't.

The second one, again recommended by our Productivity Commission and also standard practice overseas, is to let the Commerce Commission conduct proactive fossicking ("market studies") into the state of competition. It can already do it in the telecoms market, but not generally. It would take part of a morning to write the amendment to the Commerce Act.

The third one is the state of our anti-dumping regime, which is too easily abused and which allows domestic producers to avoid competition from overseas and to rort the local consumer. In June 2014 MBIE came out with a good paper with three options, one of which clearly outclassed all the others. As I said at the time, "this should be the easiest, "where do I sign", shoo-in of a policy contest that's ever been run". So why hasn't it been?