Curran Clare: Commerce Commission (International Co-operation and Fees) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Curran Clare: Commerce Commission (International Co-operation and Fees) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 31 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:4095. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on Part 2 of the Committee stage of the Commerce Commission (International Co-operation and Fees) Bill. As has been repeated by a number of speakers in the House and on this side of the House certainly this bill is dated 2008 and it is now 2012. Although it aligns us with Australia it is taking us quite a long time to actually make that happen. I think you have got to ask how that will affect other pieces of legislation and other general harmonisation mechanisms that this Government is purportedly undertaking. 
One of the main points to make around this before I get to the issue around the fees exemption is the fact that this was a Labour bill and that it was brought by the Hon Lianne Dalziel. It went through the Commerce Committee some time ago and it has taken a long time to get to this part of the bill in the Committee. We are not actually getting to the end part and goodness only knows when that will happen. 
The issue of harmonisation with Australia is critical and I suppose really it is a measure of our effectiveness as a country and in a parliamentary sense that we are pushing legislation through in commerce that is allowing and encouraging that greater reciprocal assistance from the equivalent overseas regulators. I think in terms of confidence for New Zealand for other countries dealing with New Zealand we really do have to be seen to be taking this stuff seriously. My concern which has been echoed by other members in this House from my own party and also from other parties is that we are not taking these issues seriously enough and we are certainly not pushing them forward quickly enough. We do expect that there is going to be greater reciprocal assistance between the regulators on this particular issue but as I pointed out—I think it was in the second reading—that reciprocal relationship is certainly not present on a whole range of other issues that are of great moment great importance at the moment and that is particularly in the telecommunications industry. 
There was an issue of telecommunications law that did come into this piece of legislation that was addressed because this bill did not extend to information that was gathered under the Telecommunications Act 2001. We heard submissions on this issue. It was brought to us as a particular issue by a number of the telecommunications companies that did not reflect the equivalent legislation that exists in other countries including Australia which is whom we are seeking this harmonisation with. So we had to address it and certainly the officials’ advice to us was that the possibility of including the telecommunications law was raised by the Commerce Commission with the then Minister of Communications and Information Technology which was then passed on to the Minister of Commerce. 
There was an extensive amount of discussion in the select committee about this issue and the regulatory impact statement certainly confirmed that including the Telecommunications Act in the bill outweighed the cost. But we could not do that because it was outside the scope so there had to be a Supplementary Order Paper introduced into the House on that issue. 
Just briefly around the fee exemption issue which is the subject of Part 2 we in the select committee considered removing the regulation powers to prescribe the classes of people who would be exempt from that requirement to pay any fees; we considered removing that power but because that provision was targeted to the small to medium sized enterprises—[ 
Bell rung 
] Mr Chair. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Are you seeking another call? 
CLARE CURRAN 
: Yes Mr Chair. I am seeking another call. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Clare Curran. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: As that provision was targeted to the small to medium sized enterprises we decided that it was important to retain it. So that is the essence of Part 2 and why that was considered to be important. 
I think it is important just to note that these are important pieces of legislation which to the rest of the House and perhaps to the people watching on television tonight do seem quite technical in nature and perhaps for some members may even seem quite tedious. They are very important and they do not stand alone. I am sure the Minister would agree with me on this that they are not stand-alone pieces of legislation that exist on their own; they are part of a package. We have seen come before this House a package of these harmonisation measures which are about trying to enable business to occur more freely between ourselves and particularly Australia which requires the regulatory environments of both countries to be more aligned. 
In this piece of legislation that is happening. It has taken a bit of time for us to get there but I think we are all pretty much in support and agreement around this. But the intent of that is not occurring as I pointed out earlier in some other very significant parts of our economy—in particular around again the telecommunications industry and the content creation industry which are areas where there is tremendous growth and impact for us as a nation economically and where getting the infrastructure right which includes the regulatory environment is critical. 
So the harmonisation issues there are just as important. I hope that the Minister in the chair tonight the Minister of Commerce is considering those issues is thinking about those issues and that we will actually see start to appear from his deep thinking on these issues some results in the form of potential regulatory change and potentially even legislative change in the future because those issues are how we as a nation are going to actually perform better with infrastructure that has a competitive environment and where the regulatory environment is aligned with our cousins across the Ditch. Although we certainly support this bill—and speaking on Part 2 on the fees issue we certainly support this and the other parts of the legislation—we certainly see the much bigger picture and I am expressing concern in the House today that the other side of the House the Government does not see that big picture. 
Part 2 agreed to.