Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be supporting this amendment. We have just had a debate about good economic concepts and how competition law sees them applied across the whole economy. I wish I had been able to persuade the government about that on the price signalling bill and perhaps we would be debating my private member's bill, not the one that we are dealing with now. So the idea that we then go in and not only deal with a sector-specific but then a transaction-specific prohibition strikes me as an idea that really needs a lot of work to make that argument. We have not seen that argument. The parliamentary secretary has outlined the existing provisions in section 50. I have just come from the Main Committee outlining areas where I think that general provision could be improved, and that may go some way to dealing with what the member for Melbourne was referring to and in other sectors such as supermarkets and the like.

Without dwelling on the subject, I would say that the example cited around St George and Westpac is probably not a good example. Because of the GFC, St George's credit rating meant that their access to wholesale funding offshore was quite expen­sive and much more expensive than Westpac. Gone are the days when a few slight differences in credit rating meant a very thin spread on the cost of your funds. That all changed with the GFC. If for no other reason but for the St George customers not to get a real smack in the chops over higher costs for their mortgages and the like, there was a reason that Westpac could take over St George and then use its wholesale funding machinery and its credit rating to deliver significant savings to consumers. That is the kind of market dynamic that the broad competition and consumer framework dealing with mergers and acquisitions should turn its mind to and that is where transactions of this kind, if any are proposed into the future, need to take account of the market and the consequences on consumers. So the opposition will not be supporting a blanket prohibition of the kind that is being proposed here.

Question negatived.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

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