The pointy end

Almost seven years ago,  the Productivity Commission raised it as an issue worth looking at. MBIE put out an issues paper in 2015; submissions rolled in in early 2016; the government kicked for touch in 2017; MBIE put out another discussion paper in 2019; a policy paper went to Cabinet in February 2020; and at long last a Bill was introduced this month. The Commerce Amendment Bill 2021 is now with the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee, which is due to report back by September 16. 

In sum, we've finally got to the pointy end of doing something about s36, the bit of our Commerce Act that is supposed to rein in powerful incumbents from abusing their market power, but doesn't. The Bill provides for changing our s36 wording from the current unsatisfactory

"A person that has a substantial degree of power in a market must not take advantage of that power for the purpose of — (a) restricting the entry of a person into that or any other market; or (b) preventing or deterring a person from engaging in competitive conduct in that or any other market; or (c) eliminating a person from that or any other market"

to

"A person that has a substantial degree of power in a market must not engage in conduct that has the purpose, or has or is likely to have the effect, of substantially lessening competition in — (a) that market; or (b) any other market".

It gets us out from under all the problems "taking advantage of" has caused in our competition jurisprudence, and for good measure lines us up with the Aussies, who made the same change to their equivalent legislation back in late 2017.

Submissions to the Select Committee are due by April 30, so it's time to start putting your thoughts together. If you want to keep track of how the Bill is going, you can sign up to get e-mail alerts from the Select Committee here and you can follow progress at the Bill website.

I will be submitting in wholehearted support of the change to s36 for the reasons I mentioned last year when the policy paper went to Cabinet ('It creeps ever closer'), and I hope others will, too. But I'll be opposing one element of the Bill. Last year I didn't like the look of a proposed amendment, giving the Commerce Commission powers to share information it holds with other public agencies: I thought that "there should be a tough threshold test before any of that information gets passed around the wider public sector agencies", and indeed the Cabinet paper had talked about "appropriate safeguards".

In fact the proposed level of safeguarding is pitiful. The Bill at s99AA(1)(b) provides that the Commission can hand information over when it considers it "may assist the public service agency, statutory entity, or Reserve Bank in the performance or exercise of its functions, powers, or duties under this Act or any other legislation".

"Hey, guys, you might find this handy" is no safeguard at all.