Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

The government does not support opposition amendment (5). The National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 as drafted makes NBN Co. a wholesale-only provider. The mechanism it uses is a restriction on selling to any party other than a carrier or carriage service provider or specified utility. The proposed amendment puts a further restriction on the parties NBN Co. can supply. It leaves the requirement that NBN Co. supply only carriers or carriage service providers but only those carriers or carriage service providers that, in turn, provide a service to the public.

A couple of points can be made in response to this. First, NBN Co. will only supply a service that by its nature is a wholesale service—for example, a layer 2 service on the fibre network. This is not a service that can be used by an end user as considerable resources and capability is required in order to turn a layer 2 service into an end-user or retail service. Secondly, the restriction proposed by the opposition would prevent an arrangement that has been permitted by the legislation since 1997 that a person can become a carrier even if that person wishes to supply services primarily to his or her own operations. The opposition amendment is poorly drafted and has the effect of preventing service providers from reselling services to other service providers, which I am advised is a common arrangement. For these reasons, the government does not support this amendment.

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