Coffey TamatiTAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Well that was a very emotional speech just then from the previous contributor the Rt Hon David Carter—not much to do with the Commerce (Criminalisation of Cartels) Amendment Bill but it was a contribution none the less. I want to bring this debate back on track and stop talking about could haves should haves and would haves—If we were in Government we would have done this and we would have done that." So let's just tackle some of the key points around this particular bill. First of all I want to address one of the previous speaker's comments about Labour being anti-business. Well we're not anti-business. As a business person myself—a successful business person myself in provincial New Zealand—I can stand here proudly and say that we actually stand up for businesses all across New Zealand every single day. As we go forward over the next few years—and maybe quite a few terms after that on the performance of the last speaker—we may actually get that opportunity to speak to the business community about our aspirations and things are looking good can I say. We in our party manifesto which is a collection of all of our great ideas—when we put our heads together we come up with some good stuff. We've included in there a commitment to criminalise cartels. Now this is very simple. So when the previous contribution says that this is out of the blue it's not. It's actually very firmly in our manifesto and it's something that we've wanted to address for a long time. Price fixing and other cartel conduct harms New Zealand businesses and New Zealand customers as well. If you want to point to a few recent examples well we can talk about the price fixing in relation to the introduction of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act 2012 where the total penalties exceeded $3 million. There was also another recent example of attempted anti-competitive conduct for the collection of waste oil in the Upper South Island with a penalty of $425000. These examples are recent examples and they're out there and they're happening. So what we want to do is strengthen the law around this. Most developed countries have a criminal offence for some form of cartel conduct. I say "some" because there are some that don't and those examples are Sweden Finland and Switzerland. So that's something interesting for us to take on board. But many of the other developed countries around the world have got some kind of criminal offence in store around cartel conduct. We want to take a really strong stance against business people that collude against the interests of their customers and as you've heard from quite a few of the earlier contributions even the National Party members of Parliament agree with that. If you've just tuned in to this debate then here is the rub. This is the main difference in where they see things and where we see things. You see the difference is that we think the risk of imprisonment acts as a strong deterrent and reflects the seriousness of the harm that can be caused to the economy by cartel conduct. The current Commerce Act regime and the bill have features that enhance business certainty such as the collaborative clearance regime and the various exceptions from the Act and there are other measures in there too. So a lot of the scaremongering from the other side about the changes that we're putting in here into this bill—well they've already been thought about and measures have been put in place and hopefully I'll get to that very soon. Of real importance with this particular piece of legislation is that we're going to be talking about the criminalisation of cartels which will also enable the Commerce Commission to investigate international cartels as overseas competition agencies in jurisdictions with criminal sanctions will be able to offer more cooperation to the commission underneath those laws. So what is proposed with the new criminal offence? Well basically the new criminal regime in this bill is closely based on the regime in the previous Government's cartel bill so that's a good thing—that's something that they'll be happy about. The criminal regime will run parallel to the current civil regime—again it sounds very reasonable. Now for it to become an offence the defendant must have intended to fix prices restrict output or allocate markets. The intention element of the offence is not present in the current civil regime and therein lies the difference. One of the Opposition members talked about how we wouldn't be able to determine whether or not something was intentional. To that I say well that's why we pay them the big dollars—so that they can actually argue that one out. I don't think that it's impossible to find out if there was intention and well as I say I think that's something that is valid but also mitigated as well. The penalty for the individual would be up to seven years of imprisonment or a fine of up to $500000 or even both. The penalty for bodies corporate would be up to $10 million or more in some of those cases. Now there's been a lot of fear about the chilling effect that it's going to have on businesses—that was contributed earlier by my fellow colleague over here Michael Wood. We talked about new defences. The new defence which is included in new section 82C in clause 4 applies if the defendant believes that their conduct was "reasonably necessary" for the purposes of a legitimate joint venture such as a collaborative activity. Well that's there. We've identified that and we've mitigated that too. We've also put in there as well that a two-year transitional period is proposed before the criminal offence comes into force. Now this would allow for businesses to learn from experience with the existing civil regime for cartel conduct which came into effect just in August of last year. Existing exemptions and exemptions from the civil prohibition for cartel conduct would also apply to the new criminal offence. These include the exception relating to collaborative activities such as the joint ventures and the exception for specified international shipping activities such as vessel-sharing agreements. Businesses will also be able to voluntarily apply to the Commerce Commission for clearance of their proposed collaborative activities and if granted a clearance would confer immunity from the civil prohibition and the criminal offence on the basis that the Commerce Commission would be satisfied that the activity is likely to be consistent with the Act. So we've done our homework on this and we've come to the realisation that this is necessary. This is something that the people want—we heard it in submissions—and we think that it's a good thing to do. So just to reiterate Labour is not anti-business in the slightest. We are very pro-customer—that's what we are—and that's why we are pushing this. I reiterate that it's in our manifesto so we're not just plucking this out of the air. This is actually something that's very serious to people around New Zealand—enough for us to be able to put it in the manifesto. As I've already identified we've got recent examples of where cartel conduct has harmed New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses and so what we want to do is introduce this—with the addition of imprisonment as a final resort—and put this through the House because it's the right thing to do. With that I commend this bill to the House."