Clendon David: Commerce Commission (International Co-operation and Fees) Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clendon David: Commerce Commission (International Co-operation and Fees) Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 03 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1980. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to stand to take a short call on this Commerce Commission (International Co-operation and Fees) Bill. My pleasure is only slightly spoiled by the fact that some members who as recently as last night were bellowing that the Greens always oppose everything are not here to see our agreeable side. The Greens are naturally agreeable people. We will always support well-thought-out legislation that does some good does no harm and achieves its goals. On that basis we are very happy to support this piece of legislation that we are debating today.  
The bill before us has a fairly straightforward objective but an important one: to harmonise and to allow a higher degree of cooperation between regulators in New Zealand and regulators elsewhere equivalent to our Commerce Commission. Particularly in Australia of course one of our key trading partners it ought to be reasonably easily achieved given the similarities in the two countries’ culture and practice. Not to say it will be very simple but clearly it is an appropriate ambition to enable that regulation of the wider market the Australia - New Zealand market initially. We know very well that in the absence of regulation markets fail. We are still suffering consequences internationally as well as in New Zealand of aspects of unregulated and inadequately regulated markets that inevitably lead to enormous economic social and environmental costs. To the extent that this bill endeavours to get common approaches to regulation to enable regulators to communicate and cooperate with each other that is a good thing and it is likely to enhance the potential for genuinely fair trade within and between countries.  
There was one issue that came up in the course of submissions to this bill which now seem a very long time ago. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight it is apparent perhaps that to include the telecoms regulators within this bill would have been a good thing. The Commerce Commission itself made a fairly robust submission encouraging the inclusion of telecoms regulators. It was deemed—I am sure correctly by the select committee—that to expand the scope of the bill to include those regulators was not possible or appropriate. That is a reasonable decision but I just flag that as work perhaps for another time.  
The Commerce Committee has come back with recommendations that the bill be amended to allow regulator to regulator as well as Government to Government arrangements and cooperation arrangements subject to ministerial approval. That would seem to be a sensible approach. The examples given were the difficulty of having otherwise to establish relationships not only with the Australian Federal Government but the state Governments as well. It has the added advantage of ensuring that the regulators can speak to one another independently of Government engagement or involvement when that might be appropriate and we think it may well be. I think the select committee’s willingness to support and indeed recommend the regulator to regulator relationships be inbuilt assumes a level of comfort around the independence of the organisations with which our Commerce Commission could engage both their independence and indeed their trustworthiness and their reliability. I believe that is appropriate. But I also think that given that these relationships will to some extent be built on a degree of trust it is incumbent on our regulators and indeed on our Government to lightly monitor the evolution and development of those organisations with which we do develop regulator relationships as opposed to Government ones just to ensure that the level of trust that is implied in this recommendation is sustained over time. That is not a suggestion—I am not implying—that there is any immediate harm or likelihood of a reason to lose that trust but I do think it is incumbent on us and our regulators to maintain some alertness to that possibility.  
For the Greens our only initial concern about this bill in its original draft was the implication that some organisations some entities could be exempted from the necessity of paying fees. So we looked into that and the conversation went through the committee clearly and it became apparent that the target for that the intended recipients of that goodwill—the exemption of the fees—was the small to medium sized enterprise sector. With that reassurance we are entirely happy to support that. I think it is fair to say that we know that the small to medium sized enterprises are a major contributor to our economy. Something like 40 percent of the value-added economic activity in our economy is through the small to medium sized enterprises. They are arguably an inadequately acknowledged and respected sector and part of our economy and I think it is good that they are being given this consideration in the bill to remove them from the liability of fees that are scaled more appropriately for large corporate entities which can carry that cost structure and that cost burden.  
I think that is as much as I need to say on this bill. It has been fairly well covered by other speakers. We do support it. We think it is good legislation and we are pleased to see it progress through this House. Kia ora koutou.