Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to be talking on this third reading of the Grocery Industry Competition Bill. I think that the Minister who with all due respect has been a Minister for a very short period of time will come to regret some of the statements he made in that speech. I think it was over-exuberant and I suspect he's got carried away with officials telling him what a great job he's doing. Actually I think a much more pragmatic and business-like focus should be applied to this particular bill. So on that note we have supported this bill and we have worked closely with the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. And I've got to commend the chair and the members of the select committee on both sides of the House who worked proactively to try and improve this bill as much as possible. But I'm not going to stand here tonight and say this is the panacea for everyone who is suffering from a cost of living crisis. What we hope to achieve by this bill is some improvements in the grocery trade. I just want to go through some of the big issues for us. The first one and we have repeatedly asked the Minister about this and the former Minister who was responsible for this bill—the first critical success factor for this bill is the appointment of someone with the requisite skills and expertise as the Grocery Commissioner. What we mean by that is we do not want to see necessarily someone who's a lawyer or an economist who has a smattering of knowledge around the grocery trade. Actually what we prefer is someone with bucket loads of information and experience and who has worked in the grocery trade who may actually have those other skills such as legal or economic skills. If the Minister does not make that a proper appointment that will be the first and major failing of this bill and I will hold him to his words—what he has just spoken about and what he said last night in the committee of the whole House—that the appropriate person will be recruited. Because if they are not then this whole bill faces the prospect of actually not getting off and actually leading to a better outcome. The second thing is it is necessary that an appropriate grower supplier code is put in place and of course there's a tension between growers and suppliers and supermarkets. So what I'd just say to everyone is that this is not simply about making sure that we've got a fair price. It is also about making sure that there are fair terms and conditions and it's actually around the terms and conditions of supply and how that's arranged and the fees that go alongside it—that is where you need an experienced Grocery Commissioner to be able to see through what is really happening and the different mechanisms that could be possibly imposed in the future. Our view is that that document should not lie in the hands of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and National's fought hard to make sure that that document becomes a living breathing document. And I'm glad that the select committee agreed that the initial draft should be done by MBIE in the interests of time but the responsibility for updating it and keeping that document live should rest with the Commerce Commission and particularly the Grocery Commissioner. Because that person will see firsthand what is happening and be able to react to it quickly. The second thing is we were concerned about having an effective dispute mechanism. I'm glad again that the committee agreed to the change. We wanted to make sure that there was a quick process to resolve disputes so not to rely on a court process and of course that was what had been envisaged originally in the bill. There was some resistance. I'm glad now that we have an alternative dispute procedure for disputes under $5 million because I think if there is a dispute between a supplier and the supermarket having a quick resolution around that is absolutely crucial. And I think that is an improvement to the bill that we were happy to push through.The next area is the role of the Commerce Commission in monitoring the activities of supermarkets. This has been widened this monitoring role not only in terms of overseeing the grocery aspects of the supermarkets but also to deal with potential new markets or products or services they provide such as the sale of TVs. Obviously supermarkets do fuel sales and we agree with the change which futureproofed the legislation by allowing the Commerce Commission to have regard for all products and services sold by the supermarkets.Now the next thing I want to turn to is the issue of wholesale supply. This is where I think the Minister himself got carried away in his speech because this is a significant issue. It was proposed that by the Commerce Commission that supermarkets should be required to offer wholesale pricing arrangements and supplier arrangements to competing companies that want to offer grocery around the country. This now enshrines the involvement in supermarkets and wholesale supply—so obviously it's not arranging their own supply but offering it to third parties. This is the most contentious in my view and the most dangerous part of this bill and we have some concerns about this particular aspect. Because if we get it wrong and we enshrine that right and it ends up not delivering the outcomes for competitive suppliers what this bill has done and what the whole intent of this is to actually legitimise a downstream movement by those supermarkets from the supplier right through to the end retail. And of course there's the logistical aspect involved in the delivery of wholesale products. Labour was very keen to support that. I think our support is much more reticent around that and I think one of our major concerns about this is that it removes the opportunity for third party markets. If I give an example: for the supply of groceries or vegetables such as lettuces or whatever traditionally they used to go to a market such as Turners and Growers in Auckland and it was an open transparent market. With these new wholesale arrangements those suppliers will now have to bid into a Countdown or a Foodtown arrangement. They will know their personal bid and the volume they're prepared to do but only the supermarket will know what the result of the entire bid process is. That means that there's a potential that we're going to lose the independents and the transparency of those important markets such as the fresh vegetable market. Again what this means is there's an enshrinement of a further degree of control by the supermarkets. So I'd just say to the Minister in his wonderful enthusiasm that this is a key issue. And again if the Grocery Commissioner does not have good oversight and does not ensure that this aspect of competition is protected and nurtured and continues then we really have ended up in a poor situation in respect to these bill proposals. The other side of this is that we were very keen that in terms of wholesale the definition included not just the supermarket itself in terms of its wholesale arrangements but any arrangements they may have either through subsidiaries through partnerships or any entities which they may control. That's not necessarily an ownership issue. It might be through market control of that entity. And that was again a very specific change that National pushed for in the legislation. But look in the interests of time I want to say that we are supporting the bill. It's essential that we get the right person. We will monitor the wholesale aspect very very closely. But the last thing is if it fails the Minister said we're going to regulate more. That is not what National supports. This bill already has a significant amount of legislation. The prospect of just legislating more in my view will not work. We believe that there may be a need to look at restricting some activities of the supermarket but if this does not work well in future we'll keep an open mind on that. However only time will tell whether this will deliver discernible benefits for hard-pressed families in New Zealand.