SpeechJAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Thank you Madam Speaker. [Interruption] I'd like to acknowledge the enthusiasm on the other side of the House at 10 minutes to 10 this evening. I would also like to acknowledge my fellow MP from Hamilton and commend him on how many times he fitted the word Hamilton into his speech. I think the member set a new record there. I won't try and challenge that one but it also looks like another record's been set as the member acknowledged the rugby field with the Waikato Chiefs. But I turn my attention to the bill—the Grocery Industry Competition Bill.I'd also like to commend the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs the Hon Dr Duncan Webb for bringing this bill to the House—well the previous Minister the Hon Dr David Clark initially brought this bill to the House and at the time I was the chair of the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. I was very pleased to see this bill introduced to the House and to see this bill come to the committee because there is no doubt—and there does seem to be broad agreement right across this House—that food prices are too high. They are unsustainably high. And I would like to acknowledge the support of the National Party opposite who support this bill with their reservations as they say but nevertheless support this bill because they know as well that food prices are too high. And I'm proud to be part of a Government who is doing something about that.We do have a small market here in New Zealand. And the reality is that small markets are prone to a lack of competition which often means that a Government needs to step in in order to promote that competition. We all bemoan the fact that we only have two main supermarket chains here in New Zealand. We have one Costco store I believe. The reality is it'd be great if we had 50 Costco stores here in New Zealand. Not just Costco—other stores. We do have examples of that in Australia. I was recently in Australia and I did take interest in the prices over there. And the reason Australia has lower prices is primarily because of the competition that we don't have in the market.But this bill will promote that competition. This is the second reading of the bill. We heard from submitters—I'll just mention one submitter that sort of stuck in my mind. It was a gentleman who owned a small dairy. And when he had to buy food for his dairy he had to go to the wholesaler—the wholesaler was owned by one of the duopoly—and basically they dictated the prices to him in terms of what he had to pay for the products. So many of us have been to a corner dairy and thought Why are these prices so high?" Well one of the reasons is because they actually can't get the equivalent prices that the supermarkets get. Now this dairy owner if he goes directly to the producer then the producer will go "Well what do I do? Do I give you the product or do I stay in with the duopoly? Do I risk being ostracised by the duopoly?" So there are serious power imbalances all over the place here.I think I've probably articulated enough there—I'm looking to my left and I think we'll finish there. I certainly commend this bill to the House. Thank you Madam Speaker."