The inaugural chair of the ACCC says Gina Cass-Gottlieb’s experience opposing the ACCC in court will prove invaluable, and that it’s time to appoint a lawyer as chair.
Unsolicited market proposals are not transparently assessed. Infrastructure should be built to serve the public interest, not shaped by its private backers, but the checks to ensure this are broken.
The Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 decision to allow a hazardous waste monopoly in B.C. gave life to long-dormant provisions in the Competition Act that make preventing monopolies more difficult.
Headlines pointed to the privatisation of hospital, end-of-life and dental services, but the Productivity Commission’s report is actually a lot less radical.
In a major victory for small business and the Nationals over big business, the government has agreed to write an ‘effects test’ into competition policy.
Both big and small business have much at stake in competition policy reform, but they need to move on from simplistic arguments about misuse of market power.
Big reforms in taxation and competition policy are on the table for the Abbott government, but has it spent too much political capital to get any of them across the line?
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne