Small business not the top priority for the ACCC

Competition watchdog'chief Rod Sims says while protecting small businesses is in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's remit, the welfare of consumers will always be top priority.

Addressing the RBB Economics Conference in Sydney on Thursday, Mr Sims engaged with arguments currently occurring overseas over whether competition issues should include considerations of only the "consumer welfare standard" or also include other factors, like income inequality or the protection of small business.

Mr Sims said while issues like income equality were significant, "it is inadvisable and counterproductive to import these considerations into the core of competition law".

Instead, he said any intervention the watchdog makes in competition issues comes down to making the market work better for consumers.While helping ensure fairness for small businesses is a big part of this, smaller operators are not more important than consumers in the watchdog's eyes. "I could reasonably argue that often small businesses should be treated as consumers, but this does not dispose of the issue. The truth is the ACCC seeks to make markets work for consumers. This is our objective," Mr Sims said. Read more

Emma Koehn - Brisbane Times - 29 November