NO.065

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:

CANBERRA

30 July 2003

Contact: David Alexander

02 6277 7340