Earlier this month I wrote up the latest slew of competition policy reforms, and mistakenly included one proposed reform that actually wasn't endorsed by Cabinet.
It's the proposal for the Commerce Commission to be able to initiate Australian-style industry codes. As someone's helpfully pointed out to me, "the proposal for industry codes / pro-competition rules wasn’t agreed to by Cabinet, so it’s not part of the reform package. It’s a very understandable error - the Cabinet paper discusses the proposal in detail, and you’d only spot it wasn’t agreed to if you compared the paper with the Cabinet minute".
Indeed: the Cabinet minute records what Cabinet agreed to, but is silent on proposals it turned down, and it flagged away Commission-led codes. Bit of a pity, really, as I think codes can fill a useful niche short of full-scale regulation (and this Cabinet is clearly averse to any more sector-specific statutory regulation along supermarket or petrol station lines). Never mind: the correct situation is that it's a non-runner for now.
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