Development of Trade Practices Law and Administration

Prior to 1965, there was no operative law in Australia on competition policy, and consequently there was no economic regulation of anti‐competitive practices. A modest beginning came with the 1965 Trade Practices Act, which was born out of considerable political struggle and came into operation in September 1967. During its life there was constant tension between forces for change and forces for continuity. The factors were political, legal, economic and administrative. In 1974 the Act was replaced with a much more forceful and comprehensive statute, which has continued in its fundamentals until the present, responding to the various tensions that surrounded it too. There have been important amendments, there has been incremental change, and there has been a growth of stability in the fundamentals of the Act, coming from the degree of acceptance in industry and the professions and bipartisan support in the Parliament. Proposals by the incoming Labor Government in 1983 for extending and strengthening the Act have been publicly debated to the point that the amendments are now likely to be less controversial than first proposed. The tensions between continuity and change in competition policy may illustrate some of the tensions in economic policy in general, and help to relate competition policy to economic policy in general. The article tries to trace the history of the 1965 Act, and the 1974 Act that succeeded it, in a short and non‐technical way in order to show the working context and the influences that have affected the life and development of economic regulation in the area.