14th Aug 2017, 8:09 PM – Senate Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2017 - Third Reading - Pass the bill

The majority voted in favour of a motion to pass the bill in the Senate. In parliamentary jargon, they voted to read it for a third time. This means that the bill will now be sent back to the House of Representatives, where our MPs will decide on whether they agree with the amendment made by the Senate. If so, the bill will become law.

What does this bill do?

According to the bills digest (a document put together by the parliamentary library):

The purpose of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2016 (the Bill) is to amend the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA) to reflect the Government’s acceptance of certain recommendations of the Competition Policy Review (the Harper Review). Specifically, the Bill introduces changes to section 46 of the CCA which relates to the misuse of market power, namely:

• removing the ‘take advantage’ and ‘proscribed purposes’ aspects of the current law

• removing explicit references to predatory pricing

• introducing a ‘conduct’ test and a ‘purpose, effect, or likely effect’ test

• introducing a ‘substantially lessening competition’ test

• amending the scope of the markets that misuse of market power is to be subject to

• introducing a set of pro-competitive and anti-competitive mandatory factors for courts to apply.

The Bill also repeals Divisions 2 and 3 of Part XIB of the CCA which deal with telecommunications-specific anti‑competitive conduct, as a consequence of amending section 46.