Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Mr Speaker—oh. Anna Lorck: You go.DEPUTY SPEAKER: It's actually a Labour call but Melissa Lee.MELISSA LEE: It is a Labour call Mr Speaker so I was waiting for a speaker on the other side to actually take a call. But nobody—DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is their call but they missed out so Melissa Lee.MELISSA LEE: As long as people don't recognise me as a Labour member I think I'm OK. It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Commerce Amendment Bill. I have taken note of what Mr Tangi Utikere has said and he was actually rather surprised that we were positive in our support to select committee but he was a little bit despondent about the way that we raised some issues with the bill. I would have thought that a member would support that action—that we move very carefully when we're dealing with legislation. Earlier one of my colleagues said—and I take his word very carefully; it was Hon Paul Goldsmith—that in this House we pass legislation sometimes with the effect of the legislation which is often opposite to the intent. This bill is actually dealing with those issues of whether a business had actually intended or did the effect of their actions have different effects and this bill changes the margins. This bill will replace the taking advantage test with an explicit provision on the firms with a substantial degree of market power from engaging in conduct that has the purpose of effect. So it goes from intention: did it actually have the intention to actually be a major force and change the effect? Or they may have had the intention but didn't have the effect so you can't actually prove that they actually had the intention. Now we're actually changing the margins to only looking at the effects. It doesn't matter whether they actually had the intent or not. If it has an effect then it actually becomes something that is against the rules apparently. I think sometimes when you're looking at commerce bills it is rather dry. Often people don't quite understand how it's going to impact them and what Mr Tangi Utikere said was that consumers need to be considered and I agree completely. But under the changes in this bill it is when businesses have to consult lawyers for example or the very fact that every time they want to change prices which doesn't necessary mean that they're actually acting against the bill in the guidelines of the bill they are becoming more—for example if they're presenting competition by setting a new price on their particular item or business they may have to consult a lawyer to see if in fact they are breaching the rules of section 36 in this new amendment bill. If that is the case that is an additional cost to the business and what happens to additional costs to a business? Businesses never want to own those costs. They always pass it on to the customers. So effectively what it means is that the fee that the businesses have to pay will be passed to the consumers. So this bill has potentially the end result or the effect of the changes in the bill being more cost for the consumers and I think that's one of the reasons why on this side of the bill we are moving a little bit cautiously.Competition law is very important. We need to make sure that in our market particularly in a very small country like ours we don't have a situation of monopoly or duopoly that controls prices which are actually very high for consumers. We believe in having sensible and transparent regulation—straightforward regulation—that people actually understand. We provide the settings where businesses can compete fairly and we don't want the market forces to create a conglomerate or a big monopoly that controls and sets prices for consumers that are actually prohibitive. We want to make sure that it is effective competition and I think we all agree with that.But as I said rule changes in this House setting regulations or legislation—any rule changes aren't always right or often needed. The reason I guess why I'm cautious in my view of this bill and why I look forward to the submission process in the select committee—and I saw earlier that my colleagues in Labour Mr Strange and Ms Chen and Mr Bennett have spoken on this bill and we all agree. We look forward to the discussions that we will have in select committee because often select committee is where the true effect of the bill can be highlighted. Because we are not in those businesses we as members of Parliament are able to hear their submissions to see how much of an impact this will have on people's businesses and potentially the consumers as well. When we change rules in regulation or legislation we don't want to create an inadvertent effect on people on businesses and on consumers. I hope that members in Labour in Government and in other parties will also share with me the concerns that I'm raising. Just because we cannot prove that the intent in this existing bill which we are now amending—we can't prove it and we can't take it to court. And there is a higher bar that the Commerce Commission can't actually prosecute. We're changing the bar so that we have a different set of rules. Instead of looking at the intent to prevent competition we are now looking at the effect and I'm not so sure if that is always the right way to go. But as I said I support this bill with my colleagues on this side of the House to take it to select committee for a robust examination of the bill and the submission process. I look forward to that and I commend the bill to the House.