Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2009. Before I get into the substance of the bill, with your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I welcome students in the public gallery from St Pius X Primary School in Dubbo. We really hope that you enjoy your visit to parliament. You are hearing in this chamber a very important debate relating to the establishment of an early warning system for natural disasters. Such a system has obviously received some prominence given the tragic bushfires which occurred in Victoria a few weeks ago.

There has been considerable media attention on the idea of putting in place an early warning system whereby people who reside in an affected area might be rung and provided with a warning about whatever the emergency is and instructions about what they ought to do in relation to that emergency. From the outset it should be said that the Victorian bushfires and the tragedy of that event ought to provide a significant inspiration for all of us in relation to dealing with this issue and to ensuring that this measure, along with every other measure that can be put in place to ensure that a tragedy of that kind never happens again, is implemented as quickly as possible.

The idea of an early warning system is not a new one. It was first kicked around the halls of the Commonwealth government back in 2004. When this government came to power it was a matter that we wanted to pursue with significant priority. In 2008 we referred it to the Council of Australian Governments. The states, the territories and, of course, the Commonwealth spent much of last year trying to reach an agreement about such a system.

The reason we need to have an agreement about such an early warning system is that a number of areas of government fit into it. It is within the sphere of the Commonwealth government to legislate and regulate telecommunications, and the law surrounding telephone numbers is within the purview of the Commonwealth government. On the other hand, emergency responses are largely, although not exclusively, the responsibility of states. Indeed, within states and territories there are very different rules, procedures and agencies which handle emergency responses. So it is actually quite a complex public policy landscape in which we need to work in order to develop the early warning system that we are describing.

It is very important that we work through the issues and reach an agreement about how a system would work. Were we to put in place an early warning system that we had not got right and to suddenly put a significant number of calls into an affected area, there is the potential that we could bring down the telecommunications system and, with it, the 000 number, which would be very counterproductive. So we actually do need to work through the details of what is a pretty complex scheme, and that was being done throughout last year.

There is also complexity at a Commonwealth level. It is the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy who is responsible for the regulation of the telecommunications system. But, to the extent that the Commonwealth does deal with emergency responses, that is handled in the Attorney-General’s Department. So the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and the Attorney-General were both working throughout last year on how we could engage at a federal level with the implementation of an early warning system.

In November of last year an agreement was reached about how to go forward in implementing an early warning system across our country. Since that time, the Attorney-General, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and the states and territories have been working on the details of how the system would operate, which leads us to the introduction of this bill into this House today.

In order to describe the bill, it is important to explain at the outset the broad basis of such an early warning system. The integrated public number database was established by Telstra and is maintained as a condition of its licence. This database contains all the telephone numbers in Australia, both listed and unlisted. It also contains the names of the people to whom those numbers relate, as well as their addresses. This is clearly very sensitive information, so the Telecommunications Act as it stands now provides for very strict rules to ensure that this information is not disclosed for any improper use and that the privacy of this information is strictly maintained. One exception to that currently exists under the act, and that is where Telstra is of the belief that it is reasonably necessary to disclose some of the information on the database in order to prevent or lessen serious or imminent threats to the life or health of a person.

The bill that we are discussing in essence seeks to broaden that exception to apply to not only situations of emergencies and natural disasters but also the situation of testing and building the system for emergencies, which stands to reason. It is important that you do that so that, in the event there is an emergency and you need to deploy the system, it is ready to deploy. The system might apply to very small emergencies—for example, a chemical spill in a very discrete geographical area—or it might apply to much broader emergencies, such as the Victorian bushfires that we experienced a few weeks ago.

That is a very basic description of how the system would work, and the specifics of the bill are as follows. Under this bill, the data on the integrated public number database will be able to be disclosed to a state or territory emergency service organisation to enable them to instigate a telephone based warning. As I said at the outset, as the arrangements and the agencies from state to state vary considerably, the way in which the bill is constructed is to empower the Commonwealth Attorney-General by legislative instrument to specify which organisations can be the recipients of this data. It may be under this bill that the organisations that receive the data will use it individually or they may work jointly across state borders, depending on the nature of the emergency at hand. Clearly, under this bill the data which is provided to these organisations may only be used for warnings for a specified emergency event. What we are talking about will usually be an automated voice message being rung into a particular area to let people know what the emergency is that is affecting them and what they ought to do in response to it.

There are very strict provisions as part of this bill to protect the privacy of the information which will be disclosed in such an emergency. As I said at the outset, we are talking about very sensitive information—both listed and unlisted numbers. The reasons people might have an unlisted number can vary, but the consequences of their unlisted number becoming public in any way can often be very serious. So anyone who receives information from a database under this bill and then discloses it without authorisation or misuses it in any way will be subject to very strict penalties. Indeed, they will be subject to penalties of a custodial nature. If you receive information as part of this early warning system and you misuse it then you could go to jail.

Whenever an authorised disclosure of information from the integrated public number database occurs under this bill, a report is required to be provided to the Australian Communications and Media Authority. That report must detail the nature of the emergency which was the subject of the warning, the number of people who received that warning and what information about them was provided to the organisation that put the warning in place. Having that strict reporting regime provides an evidentiary base to enable prosecutions to occur if there is ever a misuse of the information. If it turns out that information has leaked from the integrated public number database and there is no report of that then that will immediately alert the authorities that something wrong has occurred and the investigation will be able to commence, leading to a prosecution. That reporting regime is a very important part of the bill. Emergency management persons who are the recipients of this data will also be required to provide annual reports to the Australian Communications and Media Authority as well as to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

Importantly, the bill also provides a requirement that reasonable steps be taken to ensure that both the disclosure and the use of the information from the database will not affect the normal operations of the telecommunications system. This goes to a point that I made at the opening. It is very important that, as a number of inbound calls to a particular region may occur as part of a warning, this does not bring down the system and with it the 000 number, preventing outbound calls from people within that area to the 000 number. Again, this is a very important component of the bill.

The bill is principally about the early warning system, as I have described, but it does do one other piece of housekeeping. Currently, there is a practice whereby some data from the integrated public number database is provided to location dependent carriage services. These are services which provide for the automatic routing of calls to a particular office of a company based on the geography of where that call was made. The kinds of companies which use this particular method are, for example, pizza chains and cab companies. Which office you are connected to will depend on where you are ringing from. This practice is not explicitly dealt with under the Telecommunications Act. It is implicit within the act that that limited use of the database can occur in order to allow this service to occur. This bill will make it explicit in the Telecommunications Act that the use of the database in this way is allowable.

Returning to the main thrust of this bill, the bill will provide the legislative basis at a Commonwealth level for the implementation of an early warning system for emergencies and natural disasters within Australia. I think it is, along with a range of other important public policies, a significant legacy to occur. It is not just from the Victorian bushfires, but I think they ought to be an inspiration to us in dealing with issues of this kind. Certainly the Victorian bushfires make it clear that early warning systems of this kind are so important. It is so important that we develop them. That is why this bill is so important, and it is fantastic that it has bipartisan support in this place. I very much commend the bill to the House.

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