Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The same, which would be pretty heavy when you get in front of the Trade Practices Commission. Irrespective of all those other amendments, the main amendment is the change to section 46. I reiterate Senator Brandis’s statement: this legislation has only been in place for roughly 12 months and we have not seen anyone lose business, anyone be affected by products being sold under price or anyone taking this legislation to court and winning. In fact, we have not seen any movement at all under section 46. I understand that over 100 cases have been presented to the ACCC and there has been no movement or advances in any court actions taken by the ACCC.

So this legislation that the federal government put in place in September last year that was going to be so detrimental to the big end of town or the small end of town has not really had any effect. I would be loath to go back to market power because it has never worked since 2002—no-one could even get into court because market power was interpreted as being almost a monopoly situation. The government wants to make the change and go back to where we were—the unsuccessful piece of legislation that we put through in 2007. But the government cannot give us any evidence of where this legislation has failed in 12 months. It has not failed—it has not moved; the ACCC has not been able to take it to court. It has not resulted in the consequences that the Labor Party said would occur, that people would not be able to cut prices to get rid of old stock.

What this bill is trying to clarify is whether:

• the conduct of the corporation is materially facilitated by its substantial degree of market power;
• the corporation engages in the conduct in reliance upon its substantial degree of market power;
• the corporation would be likely to engage in the conduct ...

But this is not required because we have not had any evidence that it is a detrimental bill. Why don’t we leave it there and if it turns into jelly or custard then we can take the appropriate decision. But that has not happened at the moment. You are asking us to go back to our piece of legislation that was constructed under market power that never worked—it never let anyone get into court. Unless we can have some definition of what predatory pricing is and be able to then have that predatory pricing taken to court by the ACCC, all we are going to get is more and more market concentration. We are going to get some of the big players coming in and trying to predatory price.

I have seen this happen myself. I have seen where butter has been advertised in, say, Monto for $1 a kilo and in every other bulletin in other places that the particular firm puts out it is $1.50. You would have to say that that particular bulletin is aimed at predatory pricing someone in the smaller town to try to remove them. I have seen it happen and I have taken it up with the main store that was doing it and they assured me that it would never happen again. I support the legislation. I support the amendments that Senator Brandis has moved. We should give it a go and see what happens.