Australia set to reform merger laws, Chalmers says

The Albanese government is looking to ‘streamline’ legal pathways to a merger by allowing low risk mergers to go ahead quickly, says Jim Chalmers.

Jim Chalmers said he wanted to ‘streamline’ legal pathways to a merger by allowing low risk mergers to go ahead quickly. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire

The Albanese government is planning to reform Australia’s merger laws.

In a speech to a Sydney business conference on Monday, Jim Chalmers said he wanted to “streamline legal pathways to a merger by allowing low risk mergers to go ahead quickly”.

The federal treasurer said the government wanted to allow “low risk mergers to proceed quickly, and setting time frames when in-depth assessment (was) needed.”

Dr Chalmers said the government wanted to see more transparency in the merger process “by providing a more comprehensive picture of the mergers happening in our economy.”

He said the current system around mergers was “too slow” with delays in the approval process which were “costly for business, as they wait for formal authorisation, which can hold up transactions.”

The current system risked “harming productivity growth”, he said.

But he said there were also mergers where rules “may be too permissive”, allowing some mergers to go ahead which didn’t deliver benefits and increased concentration in the economy.

Dr Chalmers also indicated that there needed to be a tougher approach to “creeping acquisitions”, particularly by large firms which were not “adequately captured by existing competition laws.”

“We want to take a balanced approach to merger clearance,” he said.

“One that reduces costs for business, promotes competition, protects consumers and shortens approval times while bringing us in line with our international peers.”

Dr Chalmers said the Treasury Competition Taskforce had finalised consultation on options for merger reform.

“I’m looking forward to working through that and concluding a position and announcing it as soon as I can,” he said.

ANZ recently won a major takeover victory by finally securing approval for its $4.9bn acquisition of Suncorp’s banking business. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

Dr Chalmers also said he will consult with all current members of the Reserve Bank board, about whether they want to serve on the monetary policy or the governance board.

He said he was approaching all the current members of the board about what role they wanted to do in the future.

Dr Chalmers said that it was open for current members to decide if they wanted to serve on either of the new boards.

Plans to set up a separate monetary policy board and governance board were recommended in a review of the central bank delivered last year.

He hoped there would be continuity in the membership of the panels. But he said it was up to individual members on what boards they would like to serve on.

“We are working that out,” he said when asked about his plans for the two new boards.

“We want to ask all of the existing board members what they would like to do- would they like to serve on the monetary policy board or the governance board.”

Dr Chalmers said RBA governor Michele Bullock was interested in having ‘an element of continuity’ in the membership of the boards.

He said he was aware there was a difference of opinion with the opposition on the approach to the new boards.

Dr Chalmers said the opposition believed that the changes should see continuity on the members of the monetary policy board.

‘I want everyone to continue to serve on one of the two boards.’

The changes, which will require federal legislation, could come into force from the middle of the year.