Cosgrove ClaytonParts 1 and 2 schedule and clauses 1 to 3Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): This piece of legislation is an interesting piece of legislation. Could I signal from the outset that Labour will be supporting the vast majority of the legislation. We have put up two amendments which I will talk about in due course. This may well go down in the Commonwealth Parliament as one of the longest gestation periods for a piece of legislation. I think 4 and a bit years and four Ministers of Commerce later we are at the Committee stage with 2 and a bit weeks to go in the Parliament and one would hope that we can get this through and pass it for the good of industry.I want to say from the outset that I am pleased that the Government has accepted our offer to vote on this tonight so that we will have a vote before 10 o'clock to get through the Committee stage because I share with the new Minister the Hon Jacqui Dean who I think has been—I do not often say this about National Ministers but I have to say being the fourth Minister of Commerce in as many years she has taken this piece of legislation and I have to give her credit she has actually driven it through.This is a very important piece of legislation. I have to say I do not understand why the Government—and I do not mean this in a facetious or any other way—renders so little priority to commerce legislation. It is key legislation for industry. There are clauses contained within this that the Minister has quite rightly in my view amended and consulted with industry around shipping and other arrangements that we will get to which had the work not been done on that would have had in my view and having spoken to a number of industry folk quite a catastrophic effect on the nature of container traffic and the nature of shipping and an impact on our ports within New Zealand. But I am pleased to say that the Government has consulted industry. I think industry has spent a lot of time I am advised in providing good counsel and good remedy and those issues have been resolved and I say from the outset that we support them. They are incredibly important for industry.But if we look at the gestation period for this bill we go right back to the amendment—when it was introduced on 13 October 2011 and then it was referred to the select committee on 24 July 2012—Hon David Parker: These people were still at school.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Well there may be one or two people who were not born who knows? But the committee did its job very well and produced an interim report on 28 September 2012 and a final report on 13 May 2013. It received a second reading on 24 June 2014 and 26 November 2014 and then for some reason they pulled up stumps. We had I think several Ministers—Minister Goldsmith and I think it was Minister Foss; I have lost a few in between.But again I have got to say to be fair that this Minister has realised the importance of this legislation and we are going to punch it through. I do hope and I would be grateful—I know the Minister is not the Leader of the House but I would be grateful if she might want to give an indication—oh the Leader of the House has just arrived so he may indeed want to take a call and give an indication as to whether we can assuming we complete the Committee stage tonight do the third reading before the general election. I hope we can and as we have been doing in terms of cooperation I offer my party's support.There are a number of critical issues in respect of this that we have some concerns about and as we go through this debate we will tease them out. It was Minister Goldsmith who in respect of Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 343 clauses 17 and 18 made a case that cartel behaviour should not be criminalised. In effect unlike the fact that—I am told—it is criminalised in Australia the US Canada the UK and the other sort of developed countries that New Zealand interacts with from time to time the notion that was put forward by the then Minister Goldsmith was that somehow if we did not criminalise this behaviour that that would holus-bolus cauterise commercial innovation as we know it in New Zealand.If that is the case then presumably you could make the same leap of faith—and I am not a lawyer; I am sure Mr Parker who is a learned counsel will take up the cudgels on this as we go through—and you could then make the same case as to why you should not criminalise a whole series of particular offences. And I would argue that company directors and business people by and large—99.9 percent of them—do not sit down and say How do we build a cartel? How do we get around this law? How do we play fast and loose?" because (1) it is their reputation and (2) it is their business and their shareholders' entity on the line. I would argue that if we fell in line with our other developed-world jurisdictions—that innovation in Australia I would argue has not ended as we know it. Innovation in the US last time I checked even barring President Trump's odd interventions from time to time has not disappeared. Entrepreneurship has gone neither from the UK nor Canada.But it is there and the tenet of our criminal system is that we have deterrents. And by the way if you are thinking of playing fast and loose—not you yourself Mr Chair—if my amendment is adopted then you will do porridge. There will be imprisonable offences and I would think that is a good deterrent. If it is good enough for Australia if it is good enough for the UK if it is good enough for Canada the US and others then I cannot understand the rationale as to why we would not do it here.The other amendment that is proposed by me is SOP 408 which is an amendment to section 36 in respect of the Commerce Act; again widespread support for the concept. The concept is that we strengthen our commerce arrangements so that not only do we look at the effects of an action but we look at the impact. You know I am driving down the street and I hit somebody in a car. I did not intend to do that but actually what is the effect—because the person is now disabled their life is destroyed etc.? What this does in commercial terms is it strengthens the arm of the Commerce Commission to look at the actual impact. I am advised that a number of eminent bodies have called for this and again it brings us into line with international best practice. And why would you not want to when you are examining commercial arrangements monopolies cartels etc. look at not just the intent but also what the actual impact was and deal with that?I think these amendments are not put forward in a political way. Section 36 and the debate around it—in fact I think the Commerce Commission itself supports it if I am correct; it wants those wider powers to look at impact not just intent.The other point I will make in the first call is that we support SOP 343 in respect of the arrangements around vessel-sharing agreements and the block exemption in respect of shipping. Had the original amendments gone forward then the industry and New Zealand would have been exposed—importers and exporters—to grossly inflated additional costs increases in inefficiency in respect of the fishing industry a reduction in the number of shipping lines coming to our shores and an increase in the cost of goods to many in our community such as food and other goods coming in to New Zealand. The industry highlighted this. I have to say the Government took some time to address it but it has addressed it. I am advised that the Minister's amendments are well supported by industry and the counterfactual would have been a major impact as I have said on shipping and our port facilities.I would be grateful if the Minister in the spirit of bipartisanship could address those three issues particularly the criminalisation issue which we on this side of the House are particularly exercised about and particularly section 36. I think by and large this is a very important and good piece of legislation. I think there has been good liaison with industry and we have some very good outcomes as I have said particularly in respect of SOP 343. I think there is general support for this; in fact I think there is quite a groundswell of support for this legislation and I am pleased—and I do hope and pray that barring disaster we will get it through the Committee stage tonight and I would make a plea to the Leader of the House that we find a couple of hours to actually deal with the bill in its entirety prior to the lifting of the House.I would appreciate some comment from the Minister or a rationale as to why maybe she will support SOP 408. Maybe she will support it and take a different view from Minister Goldsmith in respect of the criminalisation in respect of the legislation."