PM Transcripts

TEL PRIME MINISTER 0/ A
JOINT STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP AND
THE BUSINESS COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA
COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS
The President of the Business Council of Australia, Mr John Ralph and I have
agreed on the critical importance of implementing a national competition policy
along the lines recommended in the Hilmer Report. A t our meeting in Canberra
today we discussed the benefits to the Australian economy that would flow from
further microeconomic reform.
Mr Ralph stressed that the BCA's top reform priority is the implementation of a
national competition policy. I emphasised that the States had an important role to
play In furthering Australia's economic interests. I said I hoped that, at the meeting
of the Council of Australian Governments In Darwin next month, Premiers and Chief
Ministers would agree to:
national competition legislation, which would
extend trade practices law to all businesses, including Stateowned
ienterprises and unincorporated entities
establish a national access regime for essential infrastructure
facilities establish a national prices surveillance system
establishment of an Integrated national approach to competition
administered by one set of Institutions; and
continued progress In specific reforms such as to electricity and gas.
I have assured Mr Ralph that business and other interested parties will be consul ted
on the details of national competition policy legislation.
CANBERRA 29 July 1994
BCA Contact: Paul Barratt PH ( 03) 274 7700 T2E9L:. Jul. 94 11: 01 No. 004 P. 01/ 01