Australian Competition Tribunal Appointments

The Treasurer, Mr Peter Costello, today announced a number of appointments to the Australian Competition Tribunal. All appointments are for five year terms.

The Honourable Justice Alan Goldberg, of Melbourne, has been appointed as President. Justice Goldberg has been a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia since February 1997 and a Deputy President of the Tribunal since 1998. He succeeds the Honourable John von Doussa, who recently resigned from the Tribunal to become President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

Two new member appointments have been made to the Tribunal:

• Dr John Marsden of Melbourne; and
• Mr Rod Shogren of Canberra.

In addition, four other persons have been re-appointed as members:

• Mr Rob Davey of Batemans Bay NSW.
• Mr Grant Latta of Melbourne.
• Professor David Round of Adelaide.
• Ms Margaret Starrs of Melbourne.

Dr Marsden has been a consultant principal specialising in business planning and policy in water and other utilities and natural resource management since 1991. He is currently Chair of the Melbourne Economic Panel.

Mr Shogren is a consultant with Access Economics and was a full-time member of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission between 1997 and 2002, with responsibility for energy regulatory matters. Prior to this, Mr Shogren had served from 1988 as a senior executive in the Commonwealth Treasury.

Mr Davey is a business consultant who was the first Regulator-General of Victoria between 1994 and 1997. Prior to this Mr Davey had been the first Chairman of the Australian Telecommunications Authority (Austel) from 1989. Before those appointments, he held a number of positions in the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department as well as senior appointments with the former Trade Practices Commission.

Mr Latta is a company director and was formerly a senior executive with Repco Corporation and the Pacific Dunlop Group.

Professor Round is the Director of the Centre for Applied Economics of the University of South Australia. Professor Round has a distinguished academic and economic consulting career and holds a part-time appointment on the Australian Communications Authority. Until his appointment to the Tribunal in 1998, Professor Round had been an associate member of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission since 1995 and, before that, the Trade Practices Commission from 1986.

Ms Starrs is a consultant who served as Deputy Chief Executive and Director Economic Policy, National Road Transport Commission between 1992 and 1996. Prior to that, Ms Starrs worked in the South Australian Department of Transport between 1972 and 1985, before taking a Masters degree in transport economics and then working in the private sector.

Background

The Tribunal was created in 1966 as the Trade Practices Tribunal. It was renamed the Australian Competition Tribunal in 1995 as part of the national competition policy reforms. Since 1975, its core function has been to review authorisation and exclusive dealing notification decisions made by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (and its predecessor) under the Trade Practices Act 1974. More recently, the Tribunal has taken on responsibility for reviewing access decisions made under Part IIIA and functions under Part XIB (Telecommunications Industry: Anti-Competitive Conduct and Record Keeping Rules) of the Act.

The Tribunal consists of presidential members – who must be federal Judges – and other members who must be qualified by virtue of their ‘knowledge of, or experience in, industry, commerce, economics, law or public administration’. Members serve on a part-time basis, as required, for a term of up to 7 years.

Following these appointments, the Tribunal now comprises: