Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know I'm not the only MP in this place who helps constituents out with telecommunications complaints. It is particularly noticeable in my community, which is peri-urban. We have some quite remote areas and we have rural areas. We have regional aspects as well as the more suburban areas. What this means is that telecommunications are absolutely vital from a safety and productivity perspective. I take very seriously complaints that are made when someone's service is not up to scratch—and, unfortunately, there are a large number of them. I think it's particularly noticeable, as this would be the largest area of complaints and advocacy that my office receives that is not part of a government department, keeping in mind that none of the telcos are owned by government.

We work really hard to try and resolve issues that the people in Macquarie face. They might be service issues or they might be infrastructure issues. It might be something that takes a really long time to resolve, like getting in more mobile phone towers and dealing with those black spots. It might be a decline in mobile quality. I'm very mindful that right now we're trying to support people who are suffering a decline in mobile coverage. It might be a landline issue, and, in places where mobile coverage is still patchy, I welcome the fact that that will be addressed by our obligation on the telcos to provide a universal outdoor mobile texting and voice data service. In the meantime, landlines, in our floods and fires, are an essential piece of communication. It might be that that landline is down—that the wires are lying low on the side of the road. All those sorts of telco issues are things we come across probably on a weekly basis.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of the complaints that we tackle come from Telstra customers because Telstra is the big legacy network. Given the nature of Macquarie, where landlines are still more widely used in the outlying areas, they are the holder of those. But other telecommunications companies come onto our radar frequently as well. Many of the cases we deal with are quite individual and specific in their nature, but there are also plenty of examples where people are experiencing a pattern of bad behaviour that is impacting large numbers of customers.

One of the challenges under the current laws that we have identified, being in government, is that the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, is hamstrung where there are breaches that affect a large number of customers. Currently, ACMA can't take direct action against a telecommunications company without first issuing an order to comply. It's only if the compliance breach continues that ACMA can take action. What this means is that, even if penalties are applied, they are seen as being the cost of doing business. In other words, it's not significant enough to the telco for them to worry too much about that behaviour beforehand and, more importantly, it's not significant enough to get them to prevent these things from happening in the first place.

That's where this legislation comes in. The Albanese government is putting Australian consumers right at the heart of the telecommunications industry. Rather than being a bit of a nuisance to the system, we're saying, 'This is why we have it.' We want to ensure that every Australian has access to reliable, high-quality and affordable telecommunications services, supported by a strong regulatory and consumer safeguards framework. That's why we've been actively reviewing the consumer protection framework and making appropriate changes.

I think it goes without saying that staying connected is now an absolutely essential part of everyday life. I do still have parts of my electorate where I go where there is no mobile coverage. I relish those moments. It's fine when things are going well, but when natural disasters hit—and they can be the areas where those disasters really take a toll—it is now critical that those telco services are there for everyone, whether it's people facing that vulnerable natural disaster experience, people living in the regions, First Nations Australians or those who rely on connectivity to support their families and provide services to their community.

I was very pleased in this term of parliament to be part of an inquiry that looked at mobile phone coverage around the country and to really understand the impacts it has on people, on businesses and on tourism—on all the different aspects of communities' lives—and why it is so important that we fill those gaps in coverage. We want to ensure that the telco industry is working for Australians, that the best consumer safeguards are in place and that there's strong, clear recourse if telcos do the wrong thing. We know these telecommunications services should be enriching people's lives, not causing them inconvenience, frustration or even harm.

So, in terms of the size of the problem, I just want to paint a picture of that. The latest data from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the TIO, shows that complaints progressed to the TIO increased 13 per cent between October and December last year, compared to the previous quarter. There was also a nearly 13 per cent increase in small business complaints. That follows four consecutive quarters of decline and a spike in 3G shutdown complaints in October and November last year.

From a small business perspective, it's not just an inconvenience. It's your viability as a business that's impacted when your phones are not working the way that you've been led to believe they will. As someone who had a small business for a quarter of a century, for my clients not to be able to contact me and to have to find some other way to reach me would have been an horrific experience for me as a small business operator. Every phone call was vital to my business.

There have also been two regular high-profile incidents in the telco sector, including significant service outage and claims of irresponsible selling practices that have really highlighted the problems and the limitations of the existing legislation.

Our solution is partly this bill. Introducing legislation to better equip the regulator, ACMA, with the tools and powers it needs to protect telco consumers and hold companies to account if they do the wrong thing is a really necessary step. We're also establishing new industry rules, prioritising keeping customers connected, greater promotion of financial hardship assistance and requiring telcos to offer assistance, such as payment plans. This is particularly important in the period we've had where the cost of living has put pressure on people. We're also developing requirements for the telcos to ensure they better support customers experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence. We're revising the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code and improving communications services for people with a disability. That's the whole suite of things that will make a difference here.

In terms of enhancing consumer safeguards in this legislation, this will give effect to a number of significant reforms to boost those enforcement powers and penalties available to ACMA. They help ensure that the ACMA is an empowered and effective regulator, and that appropriate incentive structures are in place to drive better behaviour by the telecommunications companies. Nobody wants to see an industry where those penalties are literally the cost of doing business that I referred to earlier. The proposed changes let ACMA take direct and immediate enforcement action against telecommunication providers who have breached their obligations to consumers under industry codes. It removes the two-step process where you get a warning and ACMA must first issue a direction to comply to the offending telcos, no matter how significant the breach, and then only take further action if noncompliance continues. It allows instead for a much quicker process and more appropriate action in response to breaches, by immediately addressing consumer harm and holding those telcos to account.

The bill also significantly increases the maximum general penalty for breaches of industry codes and standards from a quarter of a million dollars to about $10 million. It's a much bigger stick. Further changes allow penalties for codes, standards and determinations to be based on the value of the benefit obtained from the offending conduct or the turnover of the relevant provider, allowing for penalties even greater than $10 million in certain circumstances. This penalty framework incentivises industry compliance and better aligns with those in other relevant sectors, like energy and banking, under the Australian Consumer Law.

To ensure the ACMA has a range of effective enforcement tools at its disposal, an additional change is going to expand and clarify the government's ability to increase infringement notice penalty amounts that the ACMA can issue for all applicable breaches, including consumer protection rules. This bill also increases the visibility of providers operating in the market, especially telecommunications retailers, through the establishment of a carrier service provider registration scheme, which means that no longer will there be hidden providers who are operating without anyone being aware of what they're doing. It would allow ACMA to stop a carrier service provider operating when they've been found to pose an unacceptable risk to consumers or to have caused significant consumer harm. The significant reforms included in this bill will better equip the regulator with the tools and powers it needs to protect telco customers and to hold providers to account.

I want to point out that the reforms in this bill, particularly when taken together with the other measures, really strengthen consumer protection and have received strong support from a number of stakeholders, including the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, the Consumer Action Law Centre, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the ACMA itself and the Communications Alliance. It's important to know that the sector, particularly those in the sector who currently deal with the consequences of poor behaviour by telcos, are backing this bill. The Consumer Action Law Centre said:

Similar consequences and high penalty amounts are already in place in other sectors that provide essential services such as in energy, water and banking. The telco industry has benefited from a very light enforcement regime over the years, which has permitted continued poor practices. The consumer regulator the ACCC commenced court action late last year against Optus for its alleged unconscionable selling of phone products to hundreds of vulnerable customers, even though Telstra was fined $50m for similar conduct years earlier.

That helps you understand some of the rationale and why there is such support for this. A body that I know well, ACCAN, which is the peak national communications consumer body, has welcomed this legislation as a vital step forward for consumers who have too often been left in the lurch by failures of a regulatory framework that's been largely voluntary, too weak and poorly enforced.

This is common to many of the things that we have done in this term of parliament; we have looked at rules that have been neglected for a decade. No-one's bothered looking at them. They haven't served a purpose. They haven't been fit for purpose. They haven't been fit for the 21st century and how things have changed. What we're seeing in this legislation is an update to take into account not only how the world has changed but also how consumer expectations have changed, as they should. I'm very pleased that we are doing something that backs consumers and allows people to stand up to telecommunications companies, be given a fair deal and seek a remedy when they are not given a fair deal. I commend this bill to the House.

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