Australian's look to New Zealand experience in competition law
Published10 Feb 1995
Australian's look to New Zealand experience in competition law
With major reform of Australia's competition law underway, Australian's are looking to the New Zealand experience of how to create and sustain a competitive economy.
Commerce Commission Chairman Alan Bollard is the guest speaker at a two-day competition policy forum in Sydney, starting today.
In his speech, Creating and Sustaining a Competitive Environment, Dr Bollard described New Zealand's innovate changes since private and state sector deregulation began in 1984. He said New Zealand has gone from being one of the most protected economies in the Western world to one of the most open.
"The overall impact has been a highly disruptive restructuring recession, followed by growth in productivity, significant improvements in managerial efficiency and (following an initial reluctance to reinvest) a marked overall improvement in competitiveness," Dr Bollard said.
New Zealand's competition policy, based on the Commerce Act, starts from the basic assumption that competitive forces will allow resources to be allocated more efficiently than could be achieved in any other way.
"Generally New Zealanders and New Zealand business have now accepted the notions that they are inevitably part of the world economy, and that their success must ultimately depend on how good they are at managing business opportunities. As a result, there is much less pressure for Government subsidy or intervention."
Markets in which goods and services cannot be exported or imported pose more complex regulatory problems. New Zealand's response has been more pioneering than in most countries and is still evolving.
The early approach involved deregulation, corporatisation and in many cases privatisation of state organisations. More recently, New Zealand has focused on separating out the core activities of network companies, allowing competition where possible, information disclosure, and the threat of further deregulation and price control against any firm that does not behave in a reasonable manner.
Dr Bollard said the results, when compared to other countries' regulations, are promising.
"While improvements can always be made, I am not yet aware of any country which has been able to design a better regime with lower costs of intervention and more open entry."
Media contact and requests for copies of Dr Bollard's speech:
