Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Chair. Following on from Minister Faafoi's comments of course if New Zealanders are being ripped off by any company or industry there are very substantial powers that the Commerce Commission has in relation to price fixing or cartel behaviour or any such illegal activity by businesses where very large fines and significant penalties can be raised. So that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is a suspicion that there may be something going on in a particular industry which is not as effective as it could be. So no laws have been broken necessarily but there's a hunch. As Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs I was always cautious about this and a subsequent Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs—and the National Government itself—did advance this bill in order to offer market studies powers to the Commerce Commission. The only hesitancy I had was of course that it relies upon a Government of the day being disciplined in its approach to how it operates. The danger of course in allowing politicians to have access to market studies powers using the powers of the Commerce Commission is that it will be used for political purposes and drive-by shootings of particular industries when particular Ministers are feeling the heat on other issues. So what we've seen so far hasn't filled me with a great deal of confidence because we've had the Prime Minister of this country stand here in this Parliament and appoint herself as judge and jury on this topic and say that New Zealand consumers are being fleeced—full stop. Full stop. Now she may be right; she may be not—who knows? She certainly has no evidence to base her accusation on but we are granting the Commerce Commission powers to undertake full studies into a particular industry when the Prime Minister—and then last week it was confirmed by the Minister of Transport who agreed with the Prime Minister and then by the Attorney-General of this country for goodness' sake! The Attorney-General of this country who was answering on behalf of the Minister of Energy and Resources confirmed the Prime Minister's view that New Zealanders were being fleeced. So the worry is that unbelievably this Government has given an answer to a question that it's going to ask the Commerce Commission to come up with some evidence and a reply on and that is the thing that concerns us a great deal about this. It requires discipline from a Government and instead what we see is petrol prices going up considerably largely because of international fuel prices which fluctuate over the years—everybody understands that—but there has also been a very significant addition of fuel taxes and levies. The Prime Minister has been slippery as all heck on that topic with all sorts of different numbers that have been sort of shuffled out there—6.8 percent which is complete nonsense. There has been more than 4 percent added through excise tax plus GST and plus another 11.5c on the Auckland regional fuel tax that this Government has passed and that has flowed through to fuel taxes. So New Zealanders up and down the country are upset about trying to find the extra money within their weekly budgets to pay for the petrol and the diesel that they need to get around. They know that there are international forces behind that but they see this Government at that very time of vulnerability adding their own taxes and levies. They see all the incontinent spending of this Government and they are rightly annoyed and for the Government to then just turn around and use this power to say that New Zealanders are being fleeced without evidence is something that gives me real concern. Now that is not to say that we shouldn't ask the question. Of course we should ask the question and that's why we absolutely support having the ability to have these powers and to ask that question. But the only point I would make is that that power needs to be accompanied by discipline and this Government has shown none of it. We had the Minister talking about the fair go and absolutely we want to see all New Zealand consumers getting a fair go—absolutely. We also expect that New Zealand businesses also get a fair go and that they don't have the Prime Minister acting as a judge and jury answering a question that she herself has asked. So we support this bill and we implore this Government to show some discipline. Thank you very much.