Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): I would like to be able to say it is my pleasure to rise to speak on this bill but actually that wouldn't quite characterise my feelings towards this particular process. I don't want to start off by haranguing or maligning our Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs but this bill isn't—I don't believe at least—what the public would consider to be a Government bill because the public would consider that to be the thoughts of the new Government their view on what the markets need and perhaps what consumers need.What this bill actually is—and it is evidenced if one looks at the Cabinet papers that have come to this Government and the Cabinet papers that went to the previous Government—is not a Government bill; it's an officials' bill. The officials sought certain changes under the last Government. Some of those were declined or amended but they've got a new Minister and they've put the same old proposals back and here we are talking about not the new coalition Government's bill but in fact a bill that is proposed and is the wording and the justification not of the Government but of a single Government entity.I was told today by one of my colleagues that while it is nice to be important it is important to be nice so I don't want to start by criticising Mr Faafoi's justification of his bill. Instead in acknowledgment of our joint military service" together—and I use that term in inverted commas because our joint "military service" was 48 hours at Ōhākea airbase in the last parliamentary term—Hon Kris Faafoi: Whatever happened on base stays on base.BRETT HUDSON: —that's right; I won't give them the details Mr Faafoi—when Mr Faafoi and I enjoyed each other's company and particularly the company of our servicemen and women as we got to learn about what it takes to make an air force tick and to make a base tick. It was a wonderful example of getting along. And so I'd like to congratulate Mr Faafoi for bringing forward the third element of this bill which is enforceable undertakings.The reality is that the cease and desist measures that had been available were not used at all really—once I think Mr Faafoi put forward—and were really not a usable and worthwhile provision for the Commerce Commission. Enforceable undertakings will give a more practical and more pragmatic approach for the commission to make findings and to agree with businesses to change their practices in lieu of perhaps more onerous or more Draconian measures and those undertakings can be easily or readily backed up with the authority and force of our courts. So I do commend Mr Faafoi for introducing this bill with at least that provision. But the other two parts of the bill are not sufficiently good enough to warrant in my view the support of the Opposition or indeed the support of the Parliament.Now I do commend the intention because I do believe having listened to Mr Faafoi's speech that consumer protection and avoidance of consumer harm sits behind the rationale as to why they have accepted officials' advice and put forward the bill in the form it is in. But I don't believe that it actually is really going to deliver against their intent because there are some at the very least unintended consequences and I don't want to malign officials or indeed the Commerce Commission by intimating there may be more but there certainly are at the very least unintended consequences.The market studies—herein lies the problem. With the Commerce Commission who I believe are an absolutely and thoroughly professional organisation of members with absolute integrity. They are formed in the structure of a commission and in the structure of a commission the decision makers and the governance level are the same people. So if a decision is made under what Mr Faafoi has introduced which differs from Cabinet approval from the previous Government—that market studies can be self-initiated by the Commerce Commission—there is no other check or balance to that decision. The decision is made by the commissioners and the commissioners are both the decision makers and the governors in effect of the commission.So in reality there are no checks or balances to what they choose to do. I don't malign them. I believe they are absolutely professional individuals and what's more I believe they do a very good job—but I do believe Mr Assistant Speaker that I'll be back.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 6 p.m."