Twenty-one years on from Hilmer and it’s time to reflect on competition policy in Australia. While a review of the access regime is on foot and the new government is talking about a “Son of Hilmer” review of the competition laws more generally, competitive neutrality seems to have – once again – escaped attention. In this article, we remind you how competitive neutrality works and why we have it, before reflecting on its current “enforcement”. Finally, we ask: do we need to fix competitive neutrality, or have we outgrown it altogether?
