John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition stands by the recommendations made by the Senate Economic References Committee in its dairy pricing inquiry. The problem with this motion that we have just voted on is that it does not accurately reflect the recommend­ations of the committee. The motion notes that the four political parties supported the reinstating provisions on price discrimina­tion, but this is not the case. This recommen­dation was included in additional comments to the report which was also supported by me. I support changes to competition law to reintroduce restrictions on price discrimina­tion, but I do not support motions which contain basic factual errors.

The motion calls on the government to do a range of things, but none of these were specific recommendations of the dairy pricing inquiry. Some of these ideas in the motion put up by Senator Milne have merit, such as calling for Productivity Commission and ACCC reviews, but it is unclear why the motion does not then simply call on the government to implement the simple and detailed recommendations of the dairy pric­ing inquiry. These include an independent review of the Competition and Consumer Act, improving transparency on milk-pricing contracts and for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to provide more public information about its investigations.

The coalition is committed to undertaking a comprehensive and independent root-and-branch review of the Competition and Consumer Act. Indeed, this was a commit­ment announced by the shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, over 18 months ago. The government has dragged its feet on this issue. Through its actions the government has demonstrated that it has no interest in helping small business compete and get ahead, reducing red tape for business or providing greater protection for consumers.