Hudson BrettCOMMERCE AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 12 April.BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise again and continue this contribution. Now when we last left off I was talking about the concerns we had about the proposed market studies power particularly the self-initiation provisions for the Commerce Commission where their structure where the effective decision-making and where normally in a business or other Crown entity we might think of as the decisions of the executive are made in practice in the commission by the same group of people who fulfil the governance-type role that we might see in other entities as a board.So with self-initiation there simply is not the check and balance that would exist in a business or entity structure that had a separation of the executive and an independent board. We think that's really quite important in this environment because the market studies provisions while they are unquestionably a good idea to help ensure competitiveness in our markets and protection particularly for our consumers—they are very very powerful powers that they confer. They have the very real ability to be quite frankly very burdensome and expensive and to place a great deal of pressure on businesses across any number of industries. We feel it is appropriate given the power that is vested in the commission that there should be some check or balance to the exercise of that market studies power. Now in the absence of having an independent board that would best vest with the responsible Minister and Cabinet.That was in the original provisions that the previous Government had agreed to. They were going to be ministerial initiated inquiries. They could have been made at the request of the commissioners but initiated by the Minister and indeed even if semantically there were to be provisions about self-initiation they should have that check and balance of being approved by the Minister which means of course with Cabinet's endorsement also. We feel quite strongly about this. We cannot support the bill with the provisions as they are. It's a very deliberate change by Minister Faafoi. We've seen the paper he took to Cabinet. He was aware of the state of the bill under the previous Government and he made a very deliberate move to change that. We do not support that.The other element of the bill is around additional regulation-making provisions for the regulation of airports. Ordinarily one could look at this and suggest that—in the hypothetical that the officials have given you could build a case for saying well if a problem were to arise this would enable it to be addressed somewhat easier and more rapidly. But I think it's incorrect to presume as officials have done that it wasn't the intention of Parliament for it to be the way it is and that is that should it be determined that the information disclosure regime were not sufficient then it would have to be through a legislative change that additional powers of regulation-making authority were granted to the commission. I don't think there is any clear evidence to suggest as some officials have that it was a drafting error that led it to be the way it was.But even more importantly is that in the regulatory impact statements the officials note a couple of very key points. The first point they note is that there is evidence that the current regime of information disclosure is working well. So they're saying that there is no problem that exists with the current regulation. The second point they make is about the wider stakeholders which includes customers—you know purchasers consumers—and that is that the impact should there be a problem would not be significant. They make the point that the competitiveness between airlines has a far greater impact on the pricing consumers pay than landing fees and airport charges. So quite frankly the officials have put out there supporting evidence that suggests that their recommendation is not warranted. Our view is that regulation and regulation-making powers should be appropriate and only there to the extent that they're needed. They should address a very specific and real problem. That problem should be reinforced with evidence and the officials own arguments do not actually support doing that. So we cannot in this instance support the additional regulation-making authority.A lyricist once said two out of three ain't bad" but one out of three is poor and we do not support this bill."