 Three topics I wanted to cover today, one, and I'm sorry, I'm slightly roaming a little bit more broadly than the topic, but I thought I'd just quickly remind people about what the ACCC already does do in agriculture. I then explain what our new role in agriculture is going to be, and that absolutely goes to efficiency and supply chains. That's going to be a big part of what we'll be doing, so I'm trying to place that into context, and then I'm going to talk about the regulation of monopoly infrastructure, which I think is also a burning issue in front of us and very important for the agricultural sector. So very quickly on our current roles, because I don't want to bore you to death, you're probably aware of this, but the ACCC already advises on and enforces the water charge rules in the Murray-Darling Basin, so we are really experts in water in Murray-Darling Basin. We do a lot of work in relation to bulk wheat ports and on what basis to allow access to them, because of course they're owned by monopolies who also compete upstream. We do a lot of work in container stevedoring, and that's important because more and more agriculture is getting sent out via containers. We administer the horticulture code, which is obvious, the effect there, and we do a lot of work on collective bargaining that involves dairy, poultry, vegetables, seafood. So that brings us into contact with a lot of agricultural sectors. We do a lot of work on mergers. That's always very controversial, no matter what the sector, the two most recent controversial ones were the Murray-Gulban proposed acquisition of warnable cheese and butter. We were concerned about the impact on raw milk prices paid to farmers, but the dominant point put to us was don't bother about that. Look at the bigger picture to create an Australian champion, that old champion argument, which I thought we'd killed off years ago. In the end, that went to the Australian Competition Tribunal, and in the end, warnable cheese and butter didn't wait for the competition assessment they sold to their preferred buyer anyway. JBS Swift selling a buying Primo was the opposite concern. The concern was that we should block that because Primo is getting too big and that will affect local cattle producers, so the exact opposite issue. Our role, of course, in mergers is to determine whether or not there's a substantial lessening of competition, and there's always conflicting perspectives on that, different views brought to bear. I think getting these merger decisions right and communicating them well is fundamental. That depends on a very good dialogue between ourselves and the agricultural industry, both we understanding their perspective, they understanding how our war works and what we need to take into account, and Mick Keough and our new agricultural unit will be very helpful in doing that. Of course, we've got the enforcement work we do. I know many in the agricultural sector were disappointed with the fact that we didn't find a breach of the act in relation to the Barnawatha sale yard matter, if you're not familiar with it, some of you will be, some of you won't be, but we do a lot of enforcement work that affects agriculture at its most basic level, country of origin labelling, and of course there's changes to the law coming through on that which will involve us a bit more. So that's what we deal with agriculture already a lot is the point I was just trying to make there rather briefly. So what's the new agricultural role going to mean? We got extra money in the agricultural competitiveness white paper, obviously that also involved mixed appointment. We've established the agricultural enforcement and engagement unit, that's a first for our organisation to have a unit like that and it will and has already, it's already up and running, that's helping us increase our knowledge and expertise in agriculture and certainly Mick and myself will work very closely with that unit. Now there's three roles in essence, we're going to be playing in agriculture with that extra role in agriculture, firstly increased engagement, just getting to know each other a lot better, that's going to be with individual farmers, farmer organisation, ag businesses, on the one hand making sure people are aware of their rights and obligations under the law and also making sure there's no misunderstandings about what the law covers and I'll say a bit more about that in a second. So we'll have an increased presence in regional areas, we'll be conducting workshops and we'll generally just be out there and we'll hear and see a lot more which may indeed bring us more enforcement cases. Now I should add at last night's dinner there were at least five people from the agricultural enforcement unit, they weren't wearing ACCC uniforms so I hope you behaved yourselves in your conversation over dinner last night because they sure as hell were listening. On enforcement work I think we'll be courtesy of this unit taking more enforcement action in relation to agriculture on the one hand but probably on the other hand less than people would like and I say that because people often misunderstand what our law does cover and doesn't cover, they look at what they perceive to be and probably is unfair treatment, they look at what they perceive to be and again probably is anti-competitive behaviour but it does not necessarily breach the act. The act is a very prescriptive document, we have to work according to the law, we have no administrative power, if we think someone's breached the act we've got to take them to court and the onus is on us to prove ourselves, prove our case in court with a judge who's starting from a blank sheet of paper as you'd expect. We do take action though, we have on many occasions where we can fit things within the act, I think even though it's not particularly an agricultural issue our work in relation to coals and their arrangements with their suppliers where the court agreed that coals had behaved that breach the unconscionable conduct laws I think is an illustration of that and when we do take action it actually has quite a broad effect. I think coals has changed their behaviour post that action, we now have a code which regulates supermarket supplier relationships and I think overall things have improved, I'm not saying there are no more problems but that at all actually there still are but I think that court case showed that you can have much wider consequences than one particular enforcement action. But the third area which I wanted to spend a bit more time on which we'll be doing is market studies and advocacy in agriculture and this is where the value chain issues are prominent which gets me back to today's topic. We will be doing a lot of work to understand the issues in the agricultural supply value chains, be it red meat, be it grains, be it horticulture, be it dairy, we'll be looking in great detail and I believe we'll get great insights out of that that will be of benefit to the ACCC and our work and also potentially illuminating to observers potentially of interest to government policy makers. Now I've discussed these issues with Mick, he's going to bring fantastic knowledge and really turbo charge those market studies. I'm certainly looking forward to being closely involved in them and what we'll be doing is saying what is the value chain to get a particular good from the farm to either the supermarket shelf or the export container terminal or bulk terminal, where is the market power along that value chain, how are people behaving and where indeed are the problems and they may be problems that breach the act or they may be things that don't breach the act but which we think have a problematic effect which we think can lead to inefficient behaviour and basically we think should see the light of day. So while I don't have much tremendously exciting to say today about those market studies, they will look at all the issues, I mean I'm pre-empting what my co-panelists are going to say but we will look at all aspects of the value chain both from the buyer-seller relationships through to the transport, the lot which we know a bit about already and we've got skills in the transport sector now in the agricultural sector as I say I think they'll be very valuable and a key part of what we'll be doing with an increased role in agriculture. The last topic I want to talk about is completely on point, it's access to monopoly infrastructure and the point I want to make here is we have I think a very large problem in Australia that affects the agriculture supply chains, affects the mining supply chains and that is that we are selling off assets which I am a strong supporter of because I would never let government run any commercial business. The government's hopeless at that, there may be exceptions but very few so it's much better to privatise but we should privatise for economic efficiency, we should privatise to get these assets running better and improve the supply chain. What we're increasingly doing is privatising unregulated monopolies and then those unregulated monopolies behave as everybody in this room would do if you ran an unregulated monopoly. You would subtly put up prices and extract the rent from the value chain and if you're not doing that your board's going to fire you. So there has been a long conceptual argument in Australia, it's been going on for a long time, Ken's been across these arguments as well that says you don't need to regulate a monopoly port because it's just an economic rent transfer and this has seriously been said, I should say including by the Productivity Commission that it doesn't matter if you regulate a monopoly asset because it's really just a transfer from the farmers or the miners to the port and that doesn't matter. Well I strongly disagree, I've always disagreed with that, I think it matters a lot, I think if you're in that value chain you're contemplating investments, new farm machinery, new irrigation or whatever else and you think there's a risk that someone at the end of that supply chain is going to jack up the charges on you after you've made the investment that will make you think twice that to me is a significant efficiency cost to the economy. So I think these issues matter, you might well ask why is it standard practice then for these assets not to be subject to some form of economic regulation? Part of the answer I'm afraid is simple profit maximization, the governments in selling the asset want to maximise the sale price and in my view they ignore the long-term cost to the economy, the long-term in position on miners, on farmers of what they're doing and it's a very short-sighted approach. I think the other half of the issue though and this is the issue I just wanted to spend a couple of minutes touching on today is the test for regulation we have in Australia is part 3A and I think we're seeing that that's not working very well for pure monopoly assets. The focus on the test to be regulated or not under, so what happens is governments sell these assets, they don't regulate them, they say well if there's a problem you can always apply under part 3A to get the asset regulated but there's many problems with that. The essential problem is that part 3A was at its inception and I was there at the time bought in for vertically integrated infrastructure and so the test of whether you regulate the vertically integrated infrastructure is will the owner as it were misuse their position to reduce competition in an upstream or downstream business because the owner is in fact vertically integrated and what we've found is that when it's a straight monopoly asset there is no vertical integration, it's actually quite hard to show there's a detrimental effect on competition in an upstream or a downstream market. The problem is that's not the problem. We're not so much saying there's a problem with competition in an upstream or downstream market we're saying the monopoly transfer of rents causes economic inefficiency and whereas efficiency and competition usually go hand in hand they don't go hand in hand when you're dealing with monopoly infrastructure they separate. There may not be a competition issue there can sure as hell be an economic efficiency issue. So that I think is the issue that is really important I will just observe that we regulate our monopoly assets in Australia a lot less than what's done in the United States the land of the free and I think that's important. I might also add that I don't think people would leave polls and wires regulation to part 3a no no that's regulated I don't see the difference with other monopoly infrastructure again where there's no vertically integrate integration there's no vertical integration with polls and wires we regulate them because of the efficiency costs of not regulating them and have the monopolist charge more for electricity the same argument I think should apply to ports and rail and other like assets and as I say this does affect agriculture at the ACCC we've raised this issue with the port of Melbourne and I'm delighted that we got a very good outcome there and delighted that we were allowed to play a role there by the Victorian government also delighted that the most recent agreement that looks like it's been reached is to wind back the compensation regime to 15 years that's a very good outcome on the other hand there were press reports recently in relation to the port of Fremantle which also includes the bulk export facilities at Kwanana so this is this is WA's largest general cargo port and as I say also handles most of WA's livestock and grain exports so this port matters a lot to WA farmers I was certainly very concerned to hear about a possible plan to offer the new owner of the port of Fremantle the right to develop a new port south of Fremantle in the future so that right of first refusal you sell the asset and you give them a right of first refusal over the only likely competing asset of course is a major problem we've already got that problem with Sydney airport the owner of Sydney airport's got the right of first refusal to develop Badgeries Creek which is a golden opportunity for competition lost to the significant detriment of consumers and I think we've all got to be aware that we don't want that to happen in in Western Australia so that's all I have to say this morning I'm keeping to Ken's very strict deadline so look we'll have a lot more to say on agriculture in the future we'll have a lot more to say on agricultural supply chains I'd be delighted to get asked back next year to talk about all that but now with mix on board we'll we'll get running hard thank you very much for your time this morning