Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

A great number of my Labor colleagues are speaking on the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025—there are not so many speakers on the other side—because this bill goes to the heart of what it means to be Labor.

The member for Hunter spoke on this bill. The member for Hunter is a champion of the people of his electorate, and he is here defending their rights in this area of policy and in so many others.

My friend the member for Bennelong spoke on this bill. I always look forward to hearing from the member for Bennelong, whose sage contributions in this place and in committees are always worth listening to. It is thanks to his work and advocacy that the government has confirmed an end to consumers being stuck with surcharges when paying with debit cards. We are all in his 'debit'! I trust the electors of Bennelong too will support him to continue to represent their interests in the 48th Parliament. My Western Australian colleague the member for Swan spoke on this bill, because, just as the member for Swan fought for major reforms around financial abuse, the people of Swan know that she has their back on consumer protection in the telecommunications sector.

The bill title contains enormously important words: enhancing consumer safeguards. In many ways those words go to the heart of what the Albanese Labor government stands for, what it works for and the people we represent. We know who consumers are and why they need safeguards. They are the people of Australia: people who live here, people who make purchases and people who engage in services in the belief that they are getting what it says on the box. The great majority of the people whose businesses provide and sell these services and products are as honest as the day is long. They are invaluable, generous and straight-up members of society. A few, however, necessitate the provision of enhanced consumer safeguards. This bill is a part of that necessary process. As the minister said, we have already done more. The minister has created new rules to better support consumers who are experiencing financial hardship, and has directed the Australian Communications and Media Authority, or ACMA, to make new rules to better support people experiencing domestic, sexual or family violence.

Not very long ago, telecommunications advanced from a landline with a three-metre curly wire that allowed us to take the phone to speak out of earshot of our parents, to mobile and data based technologies. In the eighties, mobile phones were reserved for those on the big screen and for the few who owned yachts and penthouses. I was excited just to own a pager! Somehow, I still have a pager today, thanks to the traditions of the parliament. Now, telecommunications is largely wireless and often satellite based. It has become an integral part of daily existence for people from all walks of life. Telecommunications is a very modern product, but we can call it a staple, like bread. It has become essential to our lives, whether we like it or not.

The government of Australia has to stand up in this field, as in so many others, for the people who use these products. They have to be safeguarded from anyone who is more concerned not with the quality of their product but with how astonishingly rich they can get by selling it. Quality products should be fit for purpose. They should be what their producers say they are and do what the producers say they do. They should do no harm nor create difficulties. Good products are reliable and trustworthy, like good people. When Australians access broadband and voice services, they should do so with confidence, not with a sense of trepidation or any kind of anxiety as to whether their Zoom meeting will work, whether their email will be received, whether their data is safe, or whether the plan that they have paid for will deliver the product that they want without indefinite buffering.

I'm always amused by the casual way people use the term 'consumer-friendly', as if it's an optional extra, a pleasant change from the normal. If a product is not consumer-friendly it's poorly designed, poorly produced or poorly delivered. Broadband and voice services are already necessities of life for most people—try doing business, banking or even accessing government services without them. Just try living your life now without them. Recently, my office in Hasluck had a call from someone who did not have a computer and did not have a mobile phone. She rang on her landline. We were able to help her by nudging the bank—and I won't name names—which perhaps assumes everyone has such devices and that everyone is comfortable operating them.

I give a shout-out to the Good Things Foundation, who literally do good things, firstly by pointing out that one in four Australians are digitally excluded and, secondly, by working to end their exclusion. The Albanese Labor government wants to ensure that there are more things that can be done by another excellent group—ACMA, the Australian Communications and Media Authority. ACMA is a regulatory body. There are people who dislike regulatory bodies intensely and complain bitterly about red tape, and I think we can all understand that there are regulations that can be better streamlined and simplified. It's part of the work of every government to fix this. But there are also regulations vital to safeguarding us all. If those regulations aren't enforced, we are not safe. We need to ensure that ACMA is an empowered and effective regulator in our world of new and advanced technology.

One of the things that this bill proposes is bringing private networks, for example, into new developments like retirement villages. People in those developments will be enabled to access broadband and voice at appropriate standards and to help and learn from each other. The bill will also provide a mechanism for compensation to be paid to consumers—or customers, if you like—when a product doesn't meet a standard or a rule. We like to think of this as encouraging a few certain providers to lift their game. Lifting of the game is also needed when products are not provided in a timely manner. We can wait a certain amount of time for a new car and any number of other products, but, if someone moves into a new building and a network has been installed, the telecommunications must come with it—not in the provider's own sweet time but in a way that is timely and appropriate for their purchasers.

Customers, or consumers, are expected to pay their bills in a timely manner, and you've no right to get away with breaches of laws and obligations under codes just because you're big, rich and powerful. The changes proposed in this bill will enable ACMA to take direct and immediate enforcement action against telecommunications providers that have breached their obligations to customers under industry codes. Like wage theft—something the Albanese government has taken strong action about—taking people's money and then failing to provide a service is not okay; it's wrong. At the moment, offending telcos are handed what amounts to a get-out-of-jail-free card. However serious the offence, ACMA has to firstly tell them that they're doing the wrong thing and that they really should stop doing it. ACMA can only take further action if the telco ignores the notification and goes on offending. No matter how much harm this offence causes, no matter what distress it creates, they can go on doing it until round 2.

Under the changes that the bill proposes, ACMA can immediately take quick and appropriate action to stop harm being done to consumers and hold offenders to account. In the past, that still wouldn't stop those offenders who are rich enough from shrugging their shoulders—no more. The bill will increase the maximum general penalty for breaches of industry codes and standards under the Telecommunications Act 1997 from $250,000 to approximately $10 million, and that's not a slap on the wrist. When you want to enhance consumer safeguards—and I mean really enhance them, not just talk about it—you have to be determined, wilful and watchful; they may be wilful too. The bill will 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. In other words, we'll be looking at stopping people from deciding that the profits are so great that it's worth continuing to offend. Therefore, penalties greater than $10 million can also be applied in certain circumstances. Our belief is that just knowing that will act as a deterrent. No sector of the economy—whether it's in the areas of energy, banking or telecommunications—should be able to shrug its shoulders where compliance is concerned.

These powers won't be wasted on ACMA. ACMA already has a great record of enforcement actions against companies that violate industry standards and regulations. ACMA fined Optus $12 million for failing to route emergency calls through alternative networks and for not conducting welfare checks on affected customers in the 2023 outage. ACMA fined Telstra $3 million for breaching emergency call handling protocols in 2024, and, in early 2022, ACMA issued a record $2½ million penalty to Sportsbet for breaches of the Spam Act 2003. In May 2024, ACMA filed proceedings against Optus in the Federal Court, alleging a significant data breach in 2022. Notwithstanding the forward-leaning approach by ACMA and the dedicated staff that work there, that organisation needs a government willing to act to ensure that it is able to take even greater action to protect consumers. The Albanese government is that government.

When I attend citizenship ceremonies welcoming new Australian citizens—which I had the pleasure of doing just recently with you, Deputy Speaker Goodenough—I talk about the essence of Australia as a nation, I talk about how everyone should be respected and valued, and I speak about our shared commitment to the rule of law. Further, I'm proud that Australia is a foundation member of the United Nations, having played an important role in creating its founding documents. This included a commitment to the rule of law, a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities—public and private, including the state itself—are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated and that are consistent with international human rights and standards. That's a big ask, but it's a principle worth defending and applying.

This bill will require telecommunications providers operating in the market, especially telecommunications retailers, to be properly registered, through the establishment of a carrier-service-provider registration scheme. This will help to ensure that when a carrier service provider has been found to pose an unacceptable risk to consumers, or is considered to have already caused significant consumer harm, it can be detected and stopped. ACMA will have the tools and powers it needs to protect consumers and hold providers to account. Providers should provide what they say they will provide and do so honourably, honestly and at a fair price. We want to protect the honest and the honourable. Rogue operators harm them too; they harm their reputations by association and thus their competitiveness. The honest and the honourable educate themselves about their obligations to consumers and they abide by those obligations. They won't have to put up with poor behaviour giving the industry a bad name. We hope that this bill will not only reward but increase the numbers of the honest and the honourable. That benefits us all, not only those in the telecommunications sector. Every time we want to make an aspect of Australian life fairer, we advance Australia fair.

The Minister for Communications sure has been hard at work across her portfolio for the last three years. She has been increasing the number of premises with access to NBN fibre upgrades from fewer than 300,000 to more than 4.3 million and is on track to get to five million premises by the end of 2025. The minister has seen an additional 2.7 million higher speed plans taken up—an increase of 80 per cent over the term. The minister has made $480 million upgrades to the NBN fixed wireless and satellite networks, more than doubling the average speeds, with more than 800,000 households and businesses in regional, remote and peri-urban areas benefiting. She has commenced the work on the pathway to minimum download speeds of 100Mbps to bring Australia into line with international best practice. She has ably undertaken work on—and, if re-elected, will legislate—a universal outdoor mobile obligation, meaning that anyone anywhere in Australia will be able to send messages and make voice calls, including emergency calls.

The Albanese government's stated ambition is to make Australia the most connected continent. Minister Rowland has stated that this is not just about infrastructure. It also must come with the long-term interest of consumers, which is about safeguards as well, and this is the mechanism to achieve it. I congratulate the minister for all the extraordinary work she has achieved for our country. I commend the bill to the House.

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