SpeechDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): I hope the Minister's recovered from his incident this afternoon with the police Minister tipping some water over you and that you've recovered for tonight.We will be opposing this bill at this stage until several modifications are made and then we will take it for reconsideration. The great thing about retail payment systems is that when you go back down the line petrol-fuel margins haven't fallen and it's true. If you look at the important margin trending up petrol is going up according to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). So I just thought I'd clear that up before we get into the bill.It's sad to see how animated Mr Bayly can get. I'd really love to get a shot of what he's got when he's coming in here every night.Dr Duncan Webb: Come on wrong bill. Misuse of drugs is later!DAMIEN SMITH: Can anybody tell me Dr Webb what it is that he takes?Hon Members: Berocca.DAMIEN SMITH: Is it a Berocca? OK.Well you know ACT's got a different party view on this bill. One of the main purposes of the bill is obviously to support competition. There's actually potential here to reduce competition which is disturbing. This is a classic Commerce Commission MBIE hit job that was put together for a good-story message prior to the hustings of the Labour Party and hasn't really been thought through at a technical level. So Mr Bayly failed to mention that but then he's probably off to get another shot of whatever it is somewhere.You know the breadth and scope of intrusion this bill does in terms of rule setting standards setting price setting and the ability to provide you know input it's just mind-blowingly simplified. I know Mr Strange has been running this at the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee but then just shut off everybody's input after that. That's just not good enough. So we want that fully explored when we get there.In terms of competition I mean interchange fees favouring large merchants—that reduces price differentiation between schemes and limits competition reinvestment and everything that we should be working for which is to actually have innovation in the marketplace. So you know I hope that the post-implementation period after this reading takes into consideration some of our differing views which are highlighted in the bill.So just to recap those in terms of network operations we are about to set a standard that in 140 countries around the world doesn't exist for Mastercard and Visa and if we bring American Express into that as well. Now that to me is not well-thought-out by MBIE. Don't know why the Minister took that advice and it's impractical. The Commerce Commission should not interfere into the rules that govern this network.On Schedule 1 Subpart 3 the initial pricing standard the language directly relates to the clause on prohibition on certain compensation. If you look at that that means that the way the clause is currently written has potential to diminish as I said earlier competition access to innovation and may act as a deterrent to new market entrants coming into New Zealand. We want more competition and that's usually how you drive down prices. You don't take monopolies and sledgehammer them when they're providing the service in a country of only 5 million people.ACT believes the bill should place no limits in compensation provided by the networks to banks. This could have been the effect of limiting competition by constraining a bank's ability to change providers and deter new market entrants and Subpart 3 of the initial pricing standard could reflect this. It looks like two networks have been designated but not all networks have been designated. I'm surprised that neither Labour nor the National Party are prepared to bring that out in the open. We live in a free-market economy where democracy rules and that includes banking and taking out your credit card to buy things.There's an imbalance here that drives of course to shop owners. We believe that all the systems within the payment category ought to be treated equally and that the Commerce Commission should be sensible and consider the impacts to innovation and competition in their overview of changing practices in just a New Zealand context and it isn't. I haven't seen any cost-benefit analysis comparing this to Australia on a like-for-like basis. You do get discounts for volume. That's just how it works in terms of big business versus small business. But small businesses are the ones that benefit from the liquidity of being able to use credit cards and service cards to actually take money instantly from the customer.So we actually believe that the savings promoted by the Minister and the advisers—we'd like to see a two-year review of that to ensure that that $74 million magic number that they purport is actually going to be achieved and as if it isn't let's have a look at why that didn't happen. The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act rules may also affect switching by business for services and that may curtail benefits itself.So here we are: capitalist economies and democratic Governments are looking at better ways to do things better than they have done previously but I don't think this bill achieves that. So let's think about it over Easter eggs. Easter eggs make things sweeter. When buying at retail let's have a standard playing field that Duncan Webb—or sorry Dr Duncan Webb—can actually espouse to and understand the practical realities of cash movements through the network in New Zealand. Thank you Madam Speaker.