Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendment be agreed to

The reforms in the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill stem from the Harper Competition Policy Review. This is the most comprehensive review of our competition law in decades, and the government are implementing the measures that are contained in this very significant review following the outstanding work done by Professor Harper, who now sits on the Reserve Bank board. The bill is a key part of the government's economic agenda and we're progressing many of those measures and these measures are contained in this bill. They complement reforms to strengthen the misuse of market power provisions, known as section 46, that the parliament passed in August, and with the passage of this legislation today both sets of amendments will be able to come into effect in the coming weeks. These reforms will strengthen Australia's competition laws, ensure they are fit for purpose and ultimately benefit consumers, business and the economy.

We're back here today to finalise this bill because the Labor Party chose to amend it to protect their union mates from tougher penalties when they break the law. That's why. We shouldn't have to be here to do this, but the Labor Party want to protect their union mates from tough penalties when they break the law. The government opposed this amendment in the Senate; however, we supported the passage of the remainder of the bill, as we will do here, to ensure that these important reforms and related reforms to section 46 come into law as soon as possible. All the reforms originally put forward as part of the bill are sensible and should not have been controversial.

We have not heard a peep from the opposition against any of these reforms since responding to the Harper review in late 2015 or as we drafted this bill and consulted on it. Now, suddenly and without notice, the opposition has cynically chosen to oppose schedule 6 of the bill in its original form. The original schedule 6 to this bill simply proposed to align the penalties for breaches of secondary boycott provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act to the same level as other breaches of the competition law, as recommended by the Harper review and the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. Incredibly, in debate on this bill in the other place Senator Pat Dodson said that Labor welcomed the government's announcement that it will align Australian consumer law penalties with the rest of the act by increasing them to $10 million and then condemned the government for doing exactly the same thing with secondary boycott penalties.

Instead of supporting this sensible reform, Labor are doing what they always do—seeking carve-out options for unions that commit serious breaches of the law that are completely unrelated to industrial conditions that affect their members. Once again, Labor are happy to protect their union mates, break the law, at the expense of small business, workers, consumers and the wider economy. They do a disservice to the Australian economy.

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