Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Thank you. What is not to like about this bill? The fact that this Government is interested in protecting consumers and we've just had Alastair Scott again—Mr Mitchell talked about dancing on the head of a pin. National seems to be reluctantly supporting this bill giving all the reasons why it doesn't really want to support it giving all the reasons why it doesn't trust the Commerce Commission but this bill is about ensuring that markets operate well by giving the Commerce Commission and the Minister the ability to conduct market studies. This Government is interested in ensuring that consumers are protected and that we have some checks and balances on the way in which the market operates. So there is a test of whether or not it's in the public interest.I have a great deal more confidence than the previous speaker that the Commerce Commission will be able to determine whether a market study is in the public interest or not. It is also ensuring that New Zealand catches up with the rest of the OECD and with around 40 other countries internationally which have a similar power of doing market investigations. But oh no. The National Party only wants these to happen if the Minister decides. It doesn't trust the Commerce Commission. So when we want to ensure that New Zealanders get really fair and appropriate treatment as the Minister said in his first reading speech by delivering competitive markets and supporting honest business this is one bill that will help make that happen.My colleague our commerce spokesperson Gareth Hughes has suggested that one of the first times this market investigation should be used when the bill is passed is to look at the duopoly around supermarkets and to do a market study there because we've seen in the submissions that have been done by organisations like the Food and Grocery Council and some of the concerns that they have raised about the duopoly powers that this is right for a proper study. So that's what this bill is intended to do.The National Party seems to want to protect its ideological base of markets working virtually untrammelled. On this side of the House we want to ensure that markets work well and that we protect consumers. So yes the National Party when it was in Government did set about doing the targeted review of the Commerce Act which developed some of the proposals that are in this bill but it failed to actually proceed to introduce legislation to the House and that's what this Government and the Minister the Hon Kris Faafoi has done.So when we've got a tourism industry which is so important to our economy where we've got 3.7 million arrivals in 2017 and that's expected to increase to over 5 million by 2025 most of those international arrivals come in via our airports. This is another area where it would be entirely suitable for the Commerce Commission to undertake a market study because of the concerns that have been raised by the Board of Airline Representatives of New Zealand and others about the potentially excessive profits that some airport companies have and the fact that they are targeting that.They're charging users highly and they're not recognising that if we're going to have a successful tourism industry we need to ensure that airports are operating so that we get the regional benefits of distributed tourism that we get an ability for airlines to negotiate effectively with those airports and that they don't abuse the power that they have of being the sole operator in our major metropolitan areas. And so this is another example of why we need this bill and why it should also be possible for the Commerce Commission and not just the Minister to initiate these market studies.I would have thought Mr Scott that the National Party would recognise that good decisions are well-informed decisions—that if the Government is going to intervene with more regulation in for example the supermarket sector or with airports that you would want that to have been preceded by a market study to see how that market is operating to see what regulatory interventions are needed and to see whether there are other levers that the Government should be pulling. So this bill is a very sensible bill because it enables that to happen and gives the Commerce Commission more teeth. If you're going to have an effective market regime you need that regulator to have a variety of levers available to it. So the Green Party commends this bill and hopes that it passes promptly. Thank you.