There are two key government organisations with responsibilities associated with competition law and policy in New Zealand:

• the Commerce Commission; and
• the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

The Commerce Commission

The Commerce Commission was established under the Commerce Act 1986. The Commerce Commission is an independent body that has responsibility for the enforcement of the Commerce Act, the Fair Trading Act 1986, the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001 and the Telecommunications Act 2001.

The independence of the Commerce Commission is intended to ensure that the Commission's operational policies and decisions will be applied fairly and consistently and in accordance with the objectives of the Acts, without influence by individual Ministers or the Government as a whole.

Further information relating to the structure of the Commerce Commission may be obtained from the Commerce Commission website http://www.comcom.govt.nz/.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

Responsibility for providing advice to the Government on competition policy falls to the Competition and Consumer Policy team, which sits within the Commerce, Consumers and Communications (CCC) branch of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The Competition and Consumer Policy team liaises with other teams that specialize in certain sectors, such as the Communications Policy team (telecommunications and post) and the Energy Markets Policy team (electricity and gas).