Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well that was a very interesting speech. As if there is anybody in this House who thinks cartel behaviour is a good thing and something that the public is in favour of! Everybody is opposed to cartel behaviour and that is why in this country there have been very strict and severe civil sanctions against cartel behaviour running to fines of up to $10 million—huge sums involved. So it has always been treated as a very very serious offence.Well what we've seen here today is a very unedifying spectacle of a new Government filibustering away over its own bills dragging things out because it has no agenda. So what we've seen is the Government has sort of sat down and realised Oh my goodness we've got all these weeks of sitting time and we have no bills." And all the new Ministers were sent off on a little errand to find what are in effect a bit like members' bills—to find some bill that is easy to draw up and flicks a little switch that they can introduce into the House so that they can look like they're a Government that have any idea of what they are doing. So here we have this bill brought into the House which overturns a decision that was made by this House only last year after long and due consideration.Yes intelligent people can argue about whether it is a good thing to criminalise cartel behaviour or not. There are some countries that do and there are some countries that don't. There are perfectly legitimate arguments on both sides. On balance as the Minister in the previous Government I was opposed to the criminalisation for the simple reason that up to now we have seen this as a civil matter with very severe penalties involved. But ultimately if the Government does every year pass a new way for directors of companies to go to jail come up with a new way for them to go to jail if their judgments are wrong then ultimately it does add up and have a chilling effect as the phrase that has been used on innovation. We want our directors to be cautious but if you push them to be ultra-cautious then there is a cost in terms of innovation.The Government members may make out it's the simplest thing in the world to detect cartel behaviour or to understand cartel behaviour but the boundary between pro-competition collaboration and anti-competition collaboration is not as clear-cut as you would think and what may be pro-competitive one year may turn out to be anti-competitive the next year. So this is an area in many countries in the world where there is a detailed and long drawn-out public process about how best to handle it.We on balance were strongly of the view that the regime that we've had in place in New Zealand for many many years in a small economy with small businesses on the average dominating was the appropriate one for New Zealand. There's been no robust evidence put forward by officials or before the committee that makes a strong case for changing what has been in place. If you have the view that regulatory restraint is a good political philosophy to hold then this is the approach that you should take. So this Government is introducing this one and we'll look forward to taking it to select committee and hearing what people have to say but let's not forget what this is all about which is filling up the Order Paper in order to avoid embarrassment on the part of a new Government that doesn't have a clear programme to put forward."