Rod Sims: fearless watchdog with real bite in consumer’s interest

The ACCC has ridden out royal commission disquiet thanks in large part to the leadership of chairman Rod Sims.

Rod Sims hasn’t been afraid to take on the most powerful corporate players in the interests of ­consumers. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Australia’s corporate and financial regulators lost a lot of paint during and after the royal commission into financial services, ­accused of combinations of timidity, laziness and incompetence.

Even the Reserve Bank was criticised, for setting interest rates too low for too long. But one regulator, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, has ridden out the disquie­t thanks in large part to the leadership of chairman Rod Sims, who has been nominated for The Australian’s Australian of the Year Award.

Respected by both sides of politics, Mr Sims was appointed to lead the regulator in 2011 by then treasurer Wayne Swan and then for a further three years by the ­Coalition government in 2016, and again in 2018, making him the longest-serving ACCC chairman.

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Mr Sims hasn’t been afraid to take on the most powerful corporate players in the interests of ­consumers. In 2018, the ACCC accuse­d ANZ, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank of acting as a criminal cartel in relation to share trading. Early last year, Mr Sims shocked corporate Australia, used to getting its way, by blocking the merger of TPG and Vodafone, which would have removed another­ competitor from an already­ concentrated market.

“TPG is the best prospect ­Australia has for a new mobile network operator to enter the market, and this is likely the last chance we have for stronger competitio­n in the supply of mob­ile services,” he said at the time.

Mr Sims, who was nominated last year, has led the ACCC during the introduction of an “effects test”, which lowers the threshold for anti-competitive behaviour by focusing on the effect of a particular business decision on competition, rather than its intent.

Perhaps his most formative legacy will be impending changes to the regulation of Facebook and Google, which dominate almost completely the digital advertising, internet search and social media markets.

“The world has now recognised the impact of the digital platforms’ market power and the impact this has on consumers, news, businesses and society more broadly. National and world action will now follow,” Mr Sims said in July 2019 while launching a series of recommendations, including requiring tech giants and traditional media companies to negotiate over how news is displayed and funded.

Mr Sims, who has a masters in economics from the Australian Nat­ional University, was chairman of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal in NSW, and has been chairman of the NSW Rail Infrastructure Corporation and the State Rail Author­ity. He was deputy secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in the early 1990s.

We encourage our readers to put in a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year, which was first won in 1971 by economist HC “Nugget” Coombs. Prominent Australians can be nominated by filling out the coupon above, or sending an email to [e-mail] or going to our website, theaustralian.com.au. Nominations close on Thursday, January 23.