Williams Andrew: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 16 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5849. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the bills arising from the Commerce Commission (International Co-operation and Fees) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First is supporting this legislation. We supported the original bill through the first and second readings and now we support the third readings of this legislation. 
As we have heard the primary objective of the Commerce Commission (International Co-operation and Fees) Amendment Bill was introduced on 9 September 2008 so it has taken a long time to get to this point. It is somewhat disturbing that it has taken 4 years to get through the legislative process when it does provide some assistance in terms of our Commerce Commission and dealing with its associate in Australia the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. So it is somewhat disappointing that it has taken this amount of time for that cooperation to be confirmed. 
 The new powers will also affect the Commerce Act the Fair Trading Act and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act so they do have some ramifications for those Acts as well. The main thing in terms of this legislation is the reciprocity and the main justification for this legislation is that any assistance that is provided to the commission is then reciprocated with its sister organisation in Australia. This is achieved by requiring formal cooperation arrangements to be in place before the commission can offer any investigative assistance or information. Every such agreement must provide for the commission and the overseas regulator to provide information and assistance to each other. 
The concept of reciprocity between regulators is important. It should go without saying that the commission should not dedicate its time and limited resources to assisting an overseas regulator unless there is something to be gained by it and New Zealand consumers. The commission’s core function is to promote competition in markets for the benefit of New Zealanders. There are some safeguards in this. New Zealand firms already complain of the sluggishness of the commission to reach decisions for mergers and other investigations. For them a diversion of the commission’s limited resources away from its core function would be unwelcome. This legislation provides some safeguards in that respect. 
Cooperation arrangements must consider the potential consequences for New Zealand consumers and businesses of providing compulsorily acquired information or investigative assistance to the overseas regulator. The Minister must also have regard to the legal framework around the use of the information in that foreign jurisdiction. This should alleviate concerns that information obtained in New Zealand may be used in another jurisdiction in a manner inconsistent with New Zealand’s legal principles. The legislation also provides for the commission to seek payment from an overseas regulator of any costs it incurs in assisting. Again that is a good move so that we are not just doing things in the freebie situation and so that there are charges incurred and therefore they will be genuine inquiries that come from any sister organisations from other jurisdictions. 
The legislation seeks to better equip regulators both here and overseas to detect and deter anti-competitive behaviour. The proposed powers represent a significant inroad into international law concepts about the extraterritorial reach of domestic legislation and the powers of domestic regulators. This legislation overcomes international difficulties by providing an alternative and some may say back-door route for obtaining international legislative documents. 
Where information is to be provided to an overseas regulator the commission must advise any person to whom it relates about that unless disclosure compromises the overseas regulators or the commission’s investigation. In practice it is likely that the commission could if it so wished often argue disclosure would prejudice an investigation. For example it may tip off a company that an overseas regulator is investigating a particular industry or if the information has been received pursuant to a leniency application it could reveal the identity or existence of the whistleblower. 
The legislation also contains provisions to expressly protect privileged documents the commission receives from overseas regulators and vice versa. Existing agreements are already in place with some countries such as Canada the United Kingdom and Taiwan. These provide for cooperation on certain matters including coordinating enforcement activities and exchanging non-compulsorily acquired information or with the consent of the providing party. The legislation is an acknowledgment however that without compulsorily acquired information being able to be shared mutual cooperation is somewhat limited. These existing arrangements will likely need to be amended to incorporate the new proposed powers. 
As to the timing of the change this has been a long gestation as I said before—since 2008. It has taken 4 years. The Australian legislators have already enacted this some considerable time ago so we have been lagging in terms of our response to this. This is overdue. New Zealand First supports this legislation. We have said we support good policy when it is put up by the Government. This is good policy. It is very sad that it is long overdue policy but it does certainly give more strength to the Commerce Commission to this country and across the Tasman with its sister organisation to ensure that there is good practice in terms of our economy. New Zealand First supports this legislation.