Shadow Portfolio — 13 May 2026

Senator Dave Sharma used the second reading debate on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill to mount a two-pronged attack: the bill expands executive power without adequate parliamentary oversight, and its retrospective commencement date is unjustified [TA-260513-senate-d4ffca432415:s020].

Sharma's central objection is structural. Under the bill, the Treasurer gains the power to declare an emergency, unlocking ACCC exemptions from competition law that would not be disallowable instruments — meaning parliament cannot veto them. He argued this removes a foundational accountability mechanism, concentrating crisis-response discretion in the executive without a parliamentary check.

The competition portfolio's stated alternative is straightforward: the existing ACCC framework already works. Sharma cited the ACCC's track record of granting 20–30 exemptions annually and 28 exemptions during the COVID-19 crisis as direct evidence that the current regime has sufficient flexibility to handle exceptional circumstances without new emergency powers [TA-260513-senate-d4ffca432415:s020].

The second line of attack targets the bill's retrospective commencement from 1 April 2026. Sharma noted no justification has been offered for backdating the legislation — a procedural criticism that reinforces the broader argument that the bill has been insufficiently scrutinised before being advanced. The Treasurer emergency-declaration mechanism also crosses into Treasury portfolio territory, a connection Sharma made explicit in debate, framing the bill as an expansion of Treasurer authority rather than a neutral competition law instrument.

The opposition's position rests on a principle Sharma stated plainly: competition law exists to protect consumers, prevent collusion, and correct information asymmetries that distort markets. From that baseline, the coalition's argument is that the bill inverts the purpose of competition law oversight — introducing broad emergency powers where existing mechanisms already provide adequate flexibility, and doing so in a way that bypasses the disallowance process parliament uses to check executive instruments.