In a market where fewer rivals often means higher costs for ordinary people, Australia's competition regulator has for the second time refused to allow a $1.35 billion merger that would have handed a Sydney-based insurer control of more than half of Western Australia's motor and home insurance markets. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, weighing the long arc of consumer welfare against the short-term logic of consolidation, found that RAC WA remains capable of standing on its own — and that the state's policyholders are better served by a market that retains genuine competitio