Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. Of course there's one particularly strong piece of competition going on at the moment as we speak in the Hauraki Gulf in Auckland. Two yachts are racing against each other and of course as we know one of the great drivers of innovation—probably the great driver of innovation—across the economy and in sport and in every element of life is competition. It's a good thing and so it's important that we need to maintain—there is a role for Government to ensure that competitive spirit is alive and well across the economy and so the Commerce Amendment Bill and the Commerce Act itself is focused on trying to deal with abuse of market power which occurs obviously in certain parts of the economy and all around the world.If we focus on this question of section 36 taking advantage of that power as a test Australia and New Zealand had that similar piece of law. The Australians have changed that law to focus in more on the purpose or the effect or the likely effect of decisions made by a company to lessen competition. So there is a good argument for us getting in line with Australia although it's not necessarily a slam-dunk case and so National of course is going to support this bill at its first reading but we're not guaranteeing that further on. It will depend on what we hear in the select committee process. Just because it makes sense in other larger economies around the world it doesn't necessarily mean that in the context of New Zealand's economy with its very large preponderance of small businesses it automatically makes the same sense here in New Zealand. But we all are very focused on the need to ensure that there is active competition throughout the New Zealand economy and it comes fundamentally back to the cost of living and the prices that we pay.We all know as New Zealanders that there are some things—many things—for which we pay a lot in the international context and I was struck by this powerfully when in Germany a couple of years ago and going to a local supermarket an Aldi supermarket or Lidl supermarket—I can't remember which one—in Germany and being blown away by the prices available there. Large economies obviously have more scope for competition and more scope for efficiencies of scale and New Zealand with its small economy suffers from a lack of efficiency of scale and it has flowed on to the impact in many areas of our economy that two or three large players dominate. So these issues of competition are important. It always occurred to me that the most important thing you can do to advance competition—and you can pass all the laws that you like here and this is worth considering and we'll look at this in detail—the most important thing for Government policy it seems to me in competition is to focus on removing barriers to new entrants coming into any industry that you're talking about.Quite often the barriers to new entrants coming in and competing are regulatory barriers put up with the best of intentions and sometimes they're quite unrelated to the industry that you're talking about. It may well be for supermarkets that the Resource Management Act and the sheer difficulty of getting land and getting into business and being competitive creates such a barrier that new entrants from overseas don't get involved. So that I think is the most important thing we can do in competition and I'd encourage the new Minister the Hon David Clark to look closely at that broad issue and be assured that he would have support from across the House if he was rigorously focusing on removing barriers to new entrants coming in competing so that New Zealanders have—Hon Dr David Clark: The threat of market power is a pretty big barrier for many.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes and ensuring that we have access to the best prices.In terms of the debate this has been a long-held debate between specialists in the competition law zone as to the effectiveness of section 36 and whether we should adopt the Australian approach; there are good arguments for both sides but I'm very much looking forward and we on this side are looking forward to the select committee discussion because just bear in mind in these areas of legislation in the competition field but also in many financial areas it quite often turns out that the effect—and we're talking about the effects of decisions in this piece of legislation—it often turns out that the effects of legislation passed in this House are the exact opposite of what was intended by the parliamentarians when they passed the law because life is much more complex much more complicated and things aren't easily predicted. So that requires a little bit of modesty on the part of lawmakers and a real commitment to listen in the select committee processes to the considered views of a wide range of actors in this space. And so with those comments I'll finish. Thank you Madam Speaker.