Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise to speak on the Commerce Amendment Bill. I want to begin by just setting out some context for why this bill is so important particularly for New Zealand and that is that in New Zealand we have a small market. Now here on this side of the House we believe strongly in the principles of competition of private enterprise of the benefits that are gained from firms entities and individuals competing against each other to innovate to create new products to bring products more cheaply to consumers and to market. But we're also conscious that while we ultimately want a free market to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible there are potentially behaviours in a small market that can limit the effectiveness of that market. That is particularly the case in New Zealand where we can have cases where duopolies emerge where cartels can emerge and where due to the small nature of the consumer base you can have a consolidation of market power. It is for that reason that National in principle supports what this bill is trying to do which is looking at how we change the current prohibitions on misuse of market power to more closely align them with recent changes in Australia—specifically looking at considering the effect of the conduct rather than just the purpose. Of course this is important because what we're talking about here is firms of great size who are dominant in a market behaving in a way that can actually distort the way that market operates for consumers and for those wishing to purchase products. Of course this goes across all parts of our economy. When we look at the way we regulate firms and their market power it includes everything from people supplying building products through to supermarkets through to those selling petrol. So it's very important that our law is up to best practice in terms of aligning with what other jurisdictions have found to be useful and providing the Commerce Commission with the tools it needs and the scope it needs to properly explore these matters. However having said all of that National is also acutely conscious that if we get this sort of drafting in the law wrong and we make these provisions too broad in fact they can impose a considerable compliance cost and an imposition on firms in a way that doesn't actually further the interests of competition or consumer interests but simply creates an uncertain operating environment for firms in which they may feel that they are subject to undue witch hunts. So we will be working very hard in the select committee process to hear from experts on all sides of this debate to hear about how they think these amendments will operate in practice and to understand what additional compliance burdens they might bring and equally what benefits they may bring to competition in the market. The Commerce Act is a piece of legislation that must evolve and adapt in response to what is happening in our competitive market. This is work that National has long supported. I note that there are other provisions in this bill around safe harbours for certain intellectual property rights and other measures around the taking advantage test. All of these matters are matters that National believes are worthy of exploration and we look forward to further submissions on the bill. I commend this bill to the House.