Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Economics, I present the committee's report entitled Review of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission annual report 2018, together with the minutes of proceedings.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—It's a pleasure to provide a copy of this report. The Economics Committee is one of the most important committees in the House of Representatives, and we periodically engage in inquiries on the annual reports of a number of organisations that we're responsible for or oversee, including the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and APRA, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

We recently met with the ACCC to supervise, oversee and question their lines of inquiry and their focus. The annual report provides an opportunity to go through each one of those step by step. A number of themes emerged from our inquiry into the ACCC's annual report, including a particular focus around competition in the finance sector—finance, obviously, being a critical part of the health and lifeblood of the economy. But, particularly as a consequence of the flowthrough of the Hayne royal commission, a focus on finance and the health of the sector was critically important. Concerns have been raised by others related to competition within the banking and financial services world, particularly as a consequence of a front-page story which, based on the testimony of the head of the ACCC, was perhaps inadvertent but nonetheless drew attention and focus specifically to competition in the banking sector, including some of the concerns that I have previously raised regarding the competition between large banks and some of the smaller banks. As a consequence of that line of inquiry, the committee raised specifically with the ACCC whether it was perhaps prudent to consider focusing on competition in the banking sector at another time, with the forthcoming introduction of the consumer data right and open banking, which is likely to empower consumers to make larger decisions and have much more choice around competition within the banking sector.

Energy was also a very significant focus of the committee, in particular a concern about vertical integration across the sector and what that's doing around consumer choice. Also, I know that keeping prices low is a topic that is of strong interest to many members of this chamber—to make sure that households get cheap energy and, increasingly, that businesses do as well, to make sure they're competitive. While there were a number of issues related to vertical integration and competition across energy markets, the ACCC made a particular point of noting that one of the big reasons why there have been increases in price is directly related to generation costs.

Finally, there was substantial interest from committee members around the digital platforms inquiry and what that means for competition within lots of different areas in which digital platforms have an interest in commerce, in social media, and in making sure that there's clarity that the ACCC is looking at what it can practically do then to go on and implement reform. The Economics Committee continues to excel itself in providing robust inquiry and robust consideration of these matters for the parliament. We hope that the annual report for the ACCC, along with other regulatory agencies that come along, will help the parliament in its deliberations and consideration of future work. I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.