Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on the second reading of the Commerce Amendment Bill. I thought I'd just start out by just talking about what the Commerce Commission does because I haven't actually heard anyone say what it does. First of all it regulates telecommunications electricity dairy and the airports and it also administers parts of the Commerce Act in terms of approving—or otherwise—mergers and acquisitions particularly on the stock exchange. It also has a responsibility for the Fair Trading Act and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act.In general I think the Commerce Commission does a reasonable job in terms of fulfilling its remit. Of course what we're talking about today is actually a National Party bill essentially. We are all about making sure that we have a healthy competitive environment in which businesses can compete and go out and get consumers and supply the goods and services that they need at the price they require and give them the choice that they require as well. We also recognise the limitations of the Commerce Commission framework as it currently stands. Although I've got to say it does have extensive powers particularly under section 98 of the Commerce Act.The thing about this bill whilst I think we were trying to deal with it—and when I say we" I mean the National Party when we introduced this bill—was it was trying to improve the framework. The thing that worries me most about this is how it's suddenly become a very political bill. I think it's actually an absolute smokescreen for the issue that is now besetting the Government—the Labour - New Zealand First Government—with the issue around fuel taxes.I just want to talk about that for just a couple of minutes because there are three reasons why fuel taxes have gone up. First of all the price of fuel—ex Singapore or overseas markets—has gone up. When we were having this discussion back in April if anyone from the Government had sat down and done a Google search they would have already known that the fuel prices were going up but they were mindless to that opportunity and what was going to happen and charged on with imposing the fuel tax rise.The second thing is no doubt the increase in fuel taxes. I did a calculation in my own electorate of Hunua where we don't have access to public transport. We have large areas of rural communities who do not have any choice other than to use their cars. My calculation is it's about $20 a week if you're travelling 100 kilometres a day and that is very normal for most of my people living in my electorate. So that issue is increasingly coming to bite the Government.The third one is the drop in the value of the New Zealand dollar. We've seen it plummet under this Government. The day that they came in it was at roughly US73c; now it is US65c. I'm sure there might be one or two on the other side that follow foreign exchange and probably think "Oh well a lot of that's because US interest rates have risen." Well to some extent that's true. But the issue is the New Zealand dollar's fallen against virtually every currency—virtually every currency. You have to ask why did it plummet from US73c to US65c today in 12 months? The reason is that the international community 12 months ago had a different view on this economy. What they've witnessed over the last 12 months is a systemic and systematic attempt to disband and deal and create increased risk around this economy.So we've seen things like the labour reforms that are coming through—I see we're going to debate one soon. We've seen that. So businesses are looking at the environment saying their cost structures are going up. We've seen the likely imposition of the fuel taxes. We've seen that this Government's going to pile on an extra $16 billion of debt—$16 billion of debt—and they think no one notices. Well I'll tell you why: we've already seen our GDP drop from being one of the highest in the world to now middling to the bottom end of the OECD. That's why international communities look at New Zealand and go "That's a more risky place than 12 months ago." That is why our dollar has dropped from US73c to US65c—through mismanagement of this economy by that Government that Labour - New Zealand First Government.I just want to move on now. We agree with most of the elements in this bill. But the key difference I just want to highlight is that this Government has made a change. They have made a change to the bill. That is they have allowed the Commerce Commission to self-initiate market studies giving the Commerce Commission unfettered powers with no oversight. I disagree with this premise.It's interesting because if you look around the world and you look at the ACCC or in other terms the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission what is their jurisdiction? Their jurisdiction is that they can self-initiate competition or market studies but they do not have the right under that circumstance to request or require the information to be supplied. They can only get it—they can only have those extraordinary powers—by actually going to the Minister and seeking them. With the ministerial oversight of that request that's when they have the power to require information and of course that is a very significant power.If you think about the UK Competition and Markets Authority—and I visited them 12 months ago to have this very discussion with them in London—they have the right to undertake market powers but they again have been established with a system that has a check on it. The check is that the management of the UK's Competition and Markets Authority can initiate an inquiry but it must first get the approval of the board. That's what we were talking about when we introduced this bill. It was to have ministerial oversight.So in both those jurisdictions which in my view—and I've studied this area closely over the years—are two very good examples both of them have the ability for some independent oversight before you give any of those competition authorities in whatever jurisdiction—Australia America the UK or whatever—the ability for someone to say check and pause and say "Is that a relevant power?" But what this Government's proposing is that we will allow the Commerce Commission to undertake these significant studies with all the rights and powers to require information.I think it's absolutely naive of the member for Christchurch Central who spoke about the fact that if you're in a business and you haven't done anything wrong then you've got nothing to fear. Well commercially that is absolutely naive and I would have thought from a lawyer that we might've seen something a little bit more practical because these market studies are incredibly invasive—incredibly invasive. When the Commerce Commission decides to do it—and I have been involved in these studies in assisting the Commerce Commission—they are extensive in terms of the requirement on the people that are involved in those businesses not only in terms of their time but the nature of the information the cost of compiling that and the cost of having proper advisers lawyers accountants and whoever you need to get to assemble that information to make sure it's correct because you cannot afford not to make sure that it's correct.The second thing is they are incredibly disruptive to businesses. They are incredibly disruptive because these studies take a lot of time. I've heard the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs talk about it before and I heard his estimate of $400000 for these studies. I've never heard of a study with a $400000 cost. They are significant in terms of time. The cost involved for the Commerce Commission as opposed to the people they are investigating is absolutely significant. They are invasive and until you are proven innocent there is an issue that everyone knows you are subject to a Commerce Commission inquiry. That is against the counterview of making sure that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.That is the reason why I think this bill is fundamentally wrong in terms of allowing the Commerce Commission to be able to do these studies in an unfettered manner. That's why I will personally be supporting—and our party is supporting—the Supplementary Order Paper that Brett Hudson is proposing to put forward to say that these powers should be subject to ministerial oversight. That is world-best practice and this Government doesn't know that."