Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is nothing more inevitable than change. Change is with us all the time; it always has been and always will be. First there were stone tools and then the invention of the wheel. Later we had weaving machines and the Industrial Revolution more generally. There was the steam engine, which caused enormous change in the economy, in society and in the way governments dealt with the regulation of the economy. Later we had fixed-line phones, which are now almost extinct, because another technology, the mobile phone, came along and effectively took its place. Also, there has been a lot of conversation today about Twitter and other social media and such technologies. All of them have brought great change. Going back to the steam engine and railways, the monopolies involved caused the US to put in place anti-trust laws, which are among the more well-known laws that exist to this day in the United States.

So, change is with us all the time and societies and governments have to adapt to that change. This bill is very much about change. What is driving the government's policy—

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