Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise in support of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009. The significant amendments included in this bill will deliver a regulatory reform package which I believe is critical in reshaping the telecommunications sector in this nation. I believe it will provide better protections for consumers, it will provide increased competition and it will also encourage innovation.

The bill is making amendments to the Telecommunications Act 1997, the Trade Practices Act 1974 and the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999. As I have said, these amendments will deliver a significant reform package which will improve the existing telecommunications network but which will also help us in the future in terms of a transition to the NBN and what that will mean in the future. This reform package will have a positive impact on all areas of Australia but particularly on areas like those I represent, which are rural and regional areas. In Tasmania at present we do not have what I would call free competition in the marketplace, with the ability for people to vote with their feet when they are dissatisfied with the existing services. That ability is just not there.

Consumers will really benefit from this bill, as it proposes to strengthen the consumer protection framework. It will help reduce the failing service quality which has been experienced by consumers for some time. In my electorate office we receive many regular inquiries from constituents who are frustrated by the lack of service from Telstra on a range of products including landlines, mobile phones and the internet. I look forward to seeing more safeguards being put in place to assist in improving the quality of service delivery, especially as we move forward with telecommunications—and we all know that telecommunications do move forward at a rapid place.

What has really concerned me in this debate has been hearing about the opposition’s decision to try and block and defer this important legislation and not to vote on it. I do not really understand why, if they are so opposed to it, they do not want to vote on it now. But, clearly, they are trying to delay debating this bill; they are trying to stop a decision being made. That will stop Australians from getting access to better products and better services. All the opposition are showing is that they are divided and they cannot come to a decision about what they want to do with this bill. They had 11½ years to devise a broadband plan, as we know; and they had 18 failed broadband plans during that 11½ years in government. Clearly, they are not sure what they want to do when it comes to telecommunications in this country and they are still divided on the direction they want to go.

We know that consumers are demanding ever-increasing bandwidth and access to the internet. But, as they do, they are also demanding a vast improvement in service quality. We are beginning to see this transition from digital technologies, particularly in areas of health and education. In my state of Tasmania we are very pleased to be the first state to receive the National Broadband Network rollout. I have spoken to many community groups about the advances in tele-health and education services, particularly online classrooms in rural and regional areas.

On the same day that the government announced its intention to go forward and deliver the NBN we also made public our intention to reform the existing telecommunications regulatory system. We released our discussion paper, National Broadband Network: Regulatory Reform for 21st Century Broadband, with the intent of canvassing options and opinions for regulatory reform. I understand that the discussion paper did receive a strong response and that those who responded included major telecommunications service providers, broadcasters, media companies, state and territory governments, the ACCC, disability and consumer groups, business organisations and even unions. The overwhelming response received from these key stakeholders was that the current regulatory system does not work effectively to achieve the goals that it is supposed to. It is failing us all; it is failing businesses and consumers and it is failing everybody who wants access to telecommunications in this country, particularly in rural and regional areas. It is these opinions from experts in the industry that we take into account when we look at regulatory reform. The crux of this bill revolves around a package of reforms that will deliver efficient telecommunications that are underpinned by appropriate consumer safeguards.

We all know that Telstra remains one of the most integrated telecommunications companies in the world. Not only does it own the fixed line copper network in Australia that connects to almost every home and business but it also owns the largest hybrid fibre-coaxial cable network and the largest mobile network. On top of this Telstra has a 50 per cent stake in Australia’s largest subscription provider, Foxtel. We believe that the failure to address Telstra’s level of integration has meant that current regulation has failed to promote effective competition. Certainly, for consumers in my home state there is very little competition. The lack of competition in the telecommunications sector has resulted in Australia lagging well behind other developed economies on a range of telecommunications indicators. We know that that is the case in terms of our broadband speed at the moment and it is also the case in terms of access to innovative new products.

Telstra is a provider of wholesale services as well as a provider of retail services. The vertical integration held by Telstra means it has both the incentive and the ability to favour its own retail business over its wholesale customers. The overwhelming message from the industry and key stakeholders is that these current arrangements are just not suitable and the vertical integration can only be described as inadequate.

We have also heard from those on the opposite side some discussion about this bill in relation to Telstra and whether or not government should intervene and force it to separate. But Telstra does have a choice here. We have a clear preference for Telstra to structurally separate of its own accord—to act in a voluntarily capacity. Such an outcome would be consistent with the wholesale-only, open-access market structure that is to be delivered through the broadband network and through other telecommunications options. The other option for Telstra, if it does not voluntarily structurally separate, is that it will be required to separate along functional lines. Whether it is functional separation or structural separation Telstra does have a choice. At the end of the day it will result in increased levels of competition, which is better for consumers, better for the mums and dads that I represent, better for the small businesses that I represent and better for the schools in my electorate.

We also know that it is supported by the ACCC. In terms of increasing the level of competition, the ACCC supports some form of separation measure. We know that it supports functional separation as the next best option to structural separation. In addition to its vertical integration, Telstra is horizontally integrated, as it owns and operates a range of different platforms, including copper, cable and mobile.

At the core of these bills are two key amendments. Firstly we aim to improve competition across the telecommunications sector. Secondly, we aim to implement consumer protection measures as a way of improving service quality. Looking at how it is done in other developed countries, there are restrictions in place on entities preventing them from owning both cable and traditional fixed-line networks.

Reforms to the current regulatory framework are overdue. We know from expert opinion from key stakeholders and those in the industry that the current regulatory framework is ineffective. The ACCC will be central to the changes we seek to make through the passage of this bill; it will be given powers to act swiftly when it believes anticompetitive conduct is occurring in the telecommunications market.

I would like to turn now to my home state of Tasmania. There are some significant issues for consumers in Tasmania. You have heard from me before that there is a severe lack of competition. I have spoken about the concerns my constituents have and the fact that my office has quite a large number of telecommunications complaints. But in Tasmania Telstra has a very high market share, particularly in landline services and particularly in rural and regional areas. An increase in competition between telecommunications companies would mean that people would have different options when it comes to service provision and customer care. In Tasmania people find it much harder to vote with their feet and move between carriers and service providers, because often there is only one carrier who will service a particular area, and we all know that that is Telstra. For the same reasons, when you look at the landline and mobile phone coverage in Tasmania there are not a lot of alternative options. Where there is no market competition people are forced to use the only available carrier rather than having access to choice. The amendments in this bill will promote competition across Australia, including Tasmania. It will correct the anticompetitive situation that currently exists within the telecommunications industry in my home state.

One of the changes we are seeking is to protect consumers’ access to affordable telecommunications services. The package of reforms contained in this bill strengthen consumer safeguards by lessening the risk of Telstra reducing service quality around its copper network specifically prior to the rollout of the NBN. One of the fundamental things with the universal service obligation, which the government has decided to retain on Telstra for voice telephony and payphones, is the opportunity to access reliable basic telephone services. We have already seen Telstra begin to remove payphones from around the country. I want to tell you a story about an island in my electorate in Tasmania, Bruny Island, where I was alerted by some of the property owners on the island that Telstra had removed three payphones, one in the far north, one in the far south and one in the tourist centre of Adventure Bay. Upon contacting Telstra I was advised that one of the phones had been removed accidentally and would be put back and one of them had been removed quite fairly. The third one was removed and, even though they put a sign in it, nobody contacted them when Telstra was told that it is actually 20 minutes away from another phone. Worse than that, the island has extremely patchy mobile phone service, if any service at all. If someone were to have an accident in the south of the island they would not be able to get to a payphone. There is certainly an issue with payphones in Tasmania.

Debate interrupted.

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