Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well thank you for that penetrating analysis Mr Goldsmith—the future MP for Epsom. He did use the words on balance" on several occasions and I think actually that was good because this is a question of balance because cartels are something of a conundrum. At one end of the spectrum we know that if there is a cabal of businessmen in a smoke-filled room doing deals about how to raise prices together that's wrong—deeply wrong. At that end of the spectrum it should clearly be criminal. But at the other end of the spectrum we may have a group of perfectly decent business people who are putting their heads together as to how they can lower their costs to make a more efficient business. At that end of the spectrum life gets a lot more difficult. Here the balance is well struck because this is not blanket criminalisation. If we do see an agreement between businesses to knowingly move up prices or to divide up the country so they don't compete with each other it's a serious wrong. It's not just some cheeky business shenanigans; it's actually defrauding ordinary folk of their wealth. It may only be a penny at a time but actually millions of dollars are involved and that's serious.Where the collusion—and it is collusion—doesn't have that same moral taint then it's quite right that it shouldn't be criminal and that's what the civil penalties are for. It may well be that the arrangements are seriously wrong—they've been put in place; they are cartel arrangements; they are agreements that lessen competition—but they don't have the underlying intent that there is a genuine error. In those kinds of cases those arrangements won't fall foul. There is a clear recognition in this legislation that collaborative arrangements are permitted. Collaboration that lowers the input costs of a product is permitted. They are in fact to be encouraged. So that's an expressed carve-out. As the future member for Epsom Mr Goldsmith noted the line between those two is not always clear to see.One of the other things is there's been a lot of talk about economics here and how it will have a chilling effect and so on and so forth but at the end of the day there is a sociological a criminological and a moral question to be asked here. That question is: what do we do about serious moral transgressions the intentional stripping of wealth? We can't just say "It's tricky. The line's hard to draw so we won't draw a line at all." We've got to stand up to that. And when we do have a serious cartel arrangement it is deeply dishonest. It is moving wealth away from consumers and towards dishonest businesses and I know the members on the other side of the House don't want to be seen as supporting dishonest businesses. We all want to be seen to be supporting honest competitive businesses who do the right thing.So in this situation even if it was not going to change the economics of it there is a moral reason to step in here and say "We will not tolerate the wrongful taking of wealth—the wrongful and knowing taking of wealth—from one party to another." Having said that we know here that if there is a collaborative arrangement that breaches these rules but the wrongdoer had a reasonable belief that that wasn't the case then there is no criminal offence. For that reason I commend this bill to the House."