Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm really looking forward to hearing from the Minister about what the problem is that we're wanting to solve because from my experience of travelling around the country and doing a lot of flights our airports generally seem to be operating very well and I'm just not quite sure what the problem is. So I think one of the issues that we always need to keep in mind when we are wanting to regulate even more than what we currently do is that we need to understand that almost all regulation brings with it cost. I've heard the Minister before—I thought quite unjustifiably actually—commenting that this side of the Chamber wasn't talking enough about consumers. So as a consumer let me say actually this matters. It matters because cost is added and that cost is passed on to consumers for the use of those airports whether it's through airline tickets or in the odd case where it's some other form of levy on customers who are travelling. So I'm not sure what the problem is. Our airports seem to work very well. The only one thing I'd say for Auckland Airport: please sort out the roading that you also control and then I'll be even happier. And by the way quite a lot of the issues there are issues around security that tends to take quite a long time if you're there at the wrong time of the day. So what's the problem? Why do we need to have this? We understand absolutely the fuel issues. What we don't understand is what it is that we're talking about here and what is the problem. What I see are airports that are operating very well around the country. The odd other issue that I've seen is where civil aviation has not been able—say was it in Napier?—to guarantee that there would be air traffic controllers. Those are the sorts of issues that are probably well outside of the realm of this proposed legislation and yet I would have thought were probably quite important. So I don't think that's the role of the airport companies; I think that is the role of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and these are the things I think that we would want to see more. I'm not quite sure what is going wrong at Wellington Airport or Auckland Airport that needs to have specific inquiries into it—all of which I know will cost those companies tremendous amounts of money which will then be added on to tickets when people travel there. So I would really like to understand that. I also note that replaced section 56F of the Commerce Act set out in clause 10 makes it quite clear how a commission or inquiry is to be triggered which is that the commission must hold an inquiry if required to do so by the Minister and also may hold an inquiry on its own initiative. So I'm not quite sure why we'd want to have it to be both the commission and the Minister. Why not the Minister? Obviously the commission would come to see the Minister and would speak to the Minister who's in the chair—who could be slightly more generous to us because we've been so generous to him quid pro quo and all that.He could actually—you know if they had a problem that they wanted to solve I don't see why they wouldn't go to him to discuss it. I'm sure his door is always open as it always was when the Hon Jacqui Dean was the Minister—always willing to listen. So who's going to pay for it? Well the answer is the consumers. That's who pays for it. I think that the Minister does need to realise that whether it's fuel or anything else every cost from a business ends up being paid for by the consumer. That's who pays for it. There's no point talking about business paying for it. Business will pass it on and if business can't make a profit it won't be in business. So let's just be real here.The cost of living is not something that we should think is somebody else's issue. It is an issue for all of us and it's one of the issues that the New Zealand public has said to us is one of the most important issues it is facing. And just added cost to everything more regulation less in terms of outcomes—I think we deserve an answer in the committee from the Minister as to the problem that he's wishing to solve. And by the way how's that not going to be passed on the cost of it to the consumer? We've taken his message and we're going to talk about that.