Page 4288 - Week 10 - Thursday, 22 September 2011
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need to review and update policy in light of a dramatically changing environment at a national level.
The government has been undertaking a review of supermarket competition policy to test its successes, its failings, its appropriateness and its relevance. The work that I have commissioned since becoming economic development minister was aimed at an update of the policy by the end of this calendar year.
In recognition of the interest across the chamber, the government welcomes this and has supported the call to establish a select committee to review supermarket policy. I think it is important to have an Assembly-wide debate on these issues, because it would appear that we all share a goal to deliver better competition outcomes for the community and for market players.
But we support this only if this is the motivation for the inquiry. I have made it very clear, as has the planning minister, that the inquiry should not be a thinly veiled attempt to re-prosecute development application decisions. Let me be clear: the government are supporting this inquiry because we have been assured by the opposition and by the Leader of the Opposition that it is not an attempt to re-prosecute the Giralang DA. I welcome his comments in the debate earlier in relation to this matter.
The Giralang DA is before the Supreme Court and we will not, and cannot, discuss the matter whilst it is before the court. The establishment of the select committee and its inquiry should be about future policy, how supermarket policy will operate in the future. If a select committee is to be established, and it will be this morning, it ought to genuinely consider how the policy can be updated to respond to changing circumstances.
One of the issues that has concerned me has been, I suppose, the question of the extent to which the ACT government can control all of the outcomes in relation to this sector and what is the interaction and the appropriate role of the ACCC. I am not going to comment on ongoing legal matters, but members would be aware that the ACCC is in the process of appealing certain decisions that went against the commission in relation to the Franklins-Metcash situation.
There are a number of significant events that are occurring outside of the ACT that do have significant implications for us. We need to be cognisant of these issues. We need to be cognisant of the consequences of competition policy and the appropriate mechanisms to achieve competition. We have to be cognisant of the role of the ACT government, the federal government and, most importantly, the market in achieving competition.
But we also have to be cognisant, Mr Speaker, that by its very nature competition results in winners and losers. The government supports a genuine inquiry into the issues surrounding supermarket competition. I look forward to the work of the committee. The government will, of course, consider the findings of the committee’s report before updating and releasing our supermarket competition policy next year.
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