Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Telecommunications Universal Service Management Agency Bill 2011, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Service Reform) Bill 2011 and the Telecommunications (Industry Levy) Bill 2011. The principle behind this legislation is universal service obligation. I will discuss how that sits within the current context of the rollout of the National Broadband Network and I will then come to the detail of the bills.

The concept of universal service obligation has a long history—it goes back several hundred years, to some of the early postal services. Its history has been both market driven and, in more recent times, legislatively based. Obviously in the early days of new technology a particular provider in a market will be the only provider or one of only a few providers, and the history of the postal services is that some providers said that the defining characteristic of their operations was that for a single price they could deliver mail across a particular geographical area—across a country or across a state and so forth—for the same price. They were driving a market that was geographically wide, where there was no advantage from living in one of the population bases, in a big city—they were able to expand their market by providing services to people in more remote areas.

Obviously as the communications technologies developed and changed through to telegraph and telephone and today to broadband, an increasing number of players in the field looked to use this sort of marketing advantage—the single price delivery model—to distinguish them from any competitors. It was a commonly accepted aspect of communications markets that there was a universal service capacity—not always an obligation.

In more recent times, because concepts of access and equity have grown within communities, there has been more of a demand for this service not just as a marketing advantage for particular companies but as an obligation, as a right that citizens in a community or society could reasonably expect. This is particularly the case when, as our societies have become more complex, access to communications technologies has been a significant factor in people's ability to participate, whether that is participating in the politics of decision making of a nation or participating in work, study or community activities, or whether it is to participate by remaining connected to family and communities. Over time countries developed the view that it was not enough to leave it as a simple marketing advantage for a provider to be able to offer this service. With more competition and as new markets developed, people wanted greater confidence that they would not be left out.

In a nation like ours, it is no surprise that this concept of universal obligation is very important. If you sit in some of the big cities where multiple competing providers are all trying to cherry-pick very lucrative markets and provide all sorts of options, it is difficult to understand how frustrating things can be for people not very far away. Indeed, this is the case even in an area like mine or in Wollongong, in the electorate of the member for Throsby, who spoke earlier in this debate. I have been a member of parliament for just over seven years. Some of the first cases I had when I came to this place were about payphones. They were about people's great frustration that payphones were being removed. The argument was raging that 'we don't need so many payphones anymore as people are walking around with mobile phones' but some people were saying, 'That's all very well if you can afford to have a mobile phone.' Quite a few campaigns were run. I have not had any in recent years, but the payphone service issue was very big.

In recent years there has been constant contact to my office about access to decent broadband. My area is a beautiful, wonderful part of the world—and I encourage everybody to come and have a look—and we have a fabulous escarpment that runs down and meets the sea, but in parts there is a very narrow strip of land. If you have to rely on anything like wireless and even mobile phone technology it is very frustrating, especially as you get a lot of people with quite lucratively paying jobs in Sydney who think it would be really nice to live in Stanwell Park or Otford or such suburbs. Indeed, if you go to work the polling booths on election day, you find half of my colleagues on the other side have holiday houses in some of those northern suburbs, so I run into them at polling booths. The member for Bradfield would know I have met a few of his friends in the local government election campaigns at polling booths in those suburbs. So it is a beautiful part of the world and a lot of people aspire to live there, and I understand why they would, but they then discover they cannot get mobile phone reception or decent broadband and it will cost them a fortune if they are to be put on wireless, which drops out all the time.

In these more modern times access to good broadband service is a really significant issue for people. What we are therefore challenged with is this: how do we best ensure access to developing and new technologies, particularly communications technologies, so that they are made available as best we possibly can? In Australia we started to address that more formally in 1991, when we had the Telecommunications Act introduced, an act to give the right of access to voice telephone services, which became the universal service obligation. Of course, it has been amended and adjusted over time to recognise the new issues as they have arisen but it is based on the very fundamental concept, which I think is a very strong one in Australia, that it should not matter where you live or what your income is or what your educational circumstances are as there are some fundamental communication access rights that we should ensure people have. A lot of that is driven by the fact that we know that families, communities and societies across this nation, particularly in our rural and regional areas, rely very heavily on their right to participate. Their responsibility to contribute to us as a nation relies on that access and availability.

These three bills sit directly within that tradition and they are addressing the newest development, that being the newest area of communications infrastructure and technology, the rollout of the National Broadband Network, and how universal service obligations will sit within that new framework. The three related bills will deliver the reform required to support the structural separation of Telstra by putting in place the necessary reforms of the universal service obligations, so it is about moving from a directly regulated model that identifies a provider. We have gradually moved to more competition within that, recognising the diversity in the market. This sets up the new structure to operate under an infrastructure based company like the National Broadband Network Co. with competing providers accessing that infrastructure. So it sets up a long-term framework for delivering those three existing services that I have covered: the universal service obligation, which is about reasonable access to basic telephone services and to payphones; the important development of the National Relay Service, which was put in place for those with speech and hearing impediments; and, importantly, the emergency call services, those being the arrangements for handling calls to 000.

They are the existing three which have to be dealt with in the new framework, but it also provides for two new sets of arrangements. Firstly, it is to assist in the migration of voice-only customers from the Telstra copper network to the NBN fibre network. I make the point that was touched on yesterday by my colleague the member for Throsby, who worked in a union that had a lot of coverage in this area, that we should not forget that the copper network is not a Rolls-Royce version out there in the communities anyway. Anyway, one of the other issues that I constantly deal with in my area, where we get quite a bit of water, is the ongoing one of a very poorly maintained ageing copper network, so this is about making sure that, as people migrate to the fibre network, if they only want a voice based service they are able to get that. Secondly, it is to assist in the development of any necessary technology solutions to support the continued provision of existing public interest services that are provided on that copper network—things like traffic lights or public alarm systems that are working off the current network.

The reforms do this by establishing TUSMA, the new agency which will have responsibility for the provision of the USO and other services. They will do this now through a competitive contractual and grant arrangement as to third parties in the same way that we have now got the National Relay Service operating. So that is a change in the way that we are delivering it to recognise the multitude of providers that will be riding on the back of this fibre-in-the-ground infrastructure. The TUSMA Bill will therefore provide for the establishment of TUSMA as the statutory agency. It will have responsibility for the effective implementation and administration of the service agreements that deliver universal service and other public policy telecommunications outcomes. The bill sets out TUSMA's corporate governance structure and its reporting and accountability requirements. It provides for the minister, subject to the scrutiny of the parliament, to set standards, rules and benchmarks for TUSMA's contracts and grants and it sets out measures for collecting an industry levy to contribute to TUSMA's costs.

It is the government's intention to phase out the current USO regime by transitioning from the regulatory model to a more open competitive and contractual model. The reform bill therefore allows, after an initial transition period of approximately two years, for the direct USO regulation to potentially be lifted from Telstra. However, this can only occur if the minister is satisfied that there are satisfactory contractual arrangements in place. The minister will also be able to determine standards, rules and minimum performance benchmarks for TUSMA contracts or grants. These will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny by way of disallowance. Before removing the USO regulation, the government intends to make contract conditions that mirror the existing legislative standards, rules and benchmarks currently covered by USO regulatory instruments. Additionally, the existing regulated customer service guarantee—the CSG—that applies to all providers of standard telephone service will continue to apply to telephone services provided by Telstra under the TUSMA contract. The existing rules for the emergency call services remain and the ACMA will continue to regulate the emergency call service provider.

These three bills combine to put this framework in place. The government will contribute base funding of at least $50 million per annum for each of the first two financial years of TUSMA's operation—that is, 2012-13 and 2013-14—and $100 million per annum after that. The bills also identify the stakeholder consultation and review processes. The TUSMA is able to establish advisory committees as it sees the necessity and the government will undertake a comprehensive statutory review of the universal service arrangements before 1 January 2018.

The passage of these bills is important to give effect to the reforms of the universal service obligations that were announced in June 2010 when Telstra entered into the financial heads of agreement with NBN Co. that commenced the structural separation as well as the transfer of customers over to the NBN Co. fibre network. In her contribution yesterday the member for Forrest outlined her frustration at not being able to get fibre based NBN Co. services into her area as quickly as her community would like. It reflects the fact that those on the other side are very much tied to a position that many of them are not happy with, because the NBN Co. is about universal delivery of infrastructure so that people can access service providers much more effectively than they currently do.

The universal service obligation is an important component of that. These bills deserve supporting also because they reflect, regardless of the NBN rollout, a more up-to-date and modern application of that hundreds-of-years-old concept of universal service provision of communications technology.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Service Reform) Bill 2011 and related bills. Universal service obligation has been a quagmire of confused policy for 20 years. In my former life as a senior executive of Optus, I spoke about the issue so often that people in Canberra would joke that USO stands for 'Usual Submission from Optus'. Now I bring a different perspective to bear as a legislator concerned about achieving the most efficient and lowest cost arrangements to deliver broadband and telecommunication services to as many people as possible.

With that perspective, I make three points: firstly, the current USO arrangements are not well understood and are seriously flawed; secondly, the new arrangements set out in this bill are an expensive sham which do not advance the position at all and waste a lot of money; and, thirdly, there would be better ways forward which this government could have proposed if it was serious about reform.

I turn firstly to the argument that the current arrangements are not well understood and are seriously flawed. The universal service obligation in its present form was introduced in the early 1990s in advance of Telstra being exposed to competition. The unions were very concerned at the time that Telstra would lose profitable customers to new entrants and would be left serving customers in less profitable areas. Therefore, the current structure of the universal service obligation was introduced, requiring Telstra's competitors to cross-subsidise it for loss-making services, particularly in non-metropolitan Australia. It was specifically designed to be a way to try to mitigate the effect of competition on the incumbent monopolist.

In fact, the fear the unions held never really materialised because Telstra made ruthless use of its vertical integration and incumbent advantages. Even so, the USO was baked into the legislative arrangements and a cabal of cardigan wearers in the Australian Communications Authority, later the Australian Communications and Media Authority, set about the ponderous and regular task of assessing Telstra's so-called net universal service cost—that is, the amount it purportedly loses in providing universal service—and then allocating that cost across industry participants. The cost modelling used by the Australian Communications and Media Authority is intensely controversial. It does not take account of the advantages which Telstra enjoys as the result of being the universal service provider and as the result of being the incumbent, including its economies of scale and scope and, of course, the brand benefits which come from being seen as the ubiquitous provider of telecommunication services.

The government asserts that the report it obtained last year from its consultants, Castalia, gives what has previously been lacking in this debate: an objective estimate of the cost to Telstra of the universal service obligation. I am sorry to say that the report does no such thing. It is riddled with blank spots where key data has been withheld on the grounds that it is commercial-in-confidence. There has been little opportunity for third parties to test the data and assumptions in that report and the report fails to take account of the benefits, which I have already mentioned, which Telstra receives from being the ubiquitous operator. These benefits have been recognised by telecommunications regulators in many other countries.

Telstra's obligations under the universal service obligation are quite narrowly and specifically defined. It is required to provide the so-called 'standard telephone service'—that is, a voice telephony service. As we have heard, the USO also covers pay phones—and there are some other elements such as the National Relay Service—but I want to confine my comments to the question of services received by individual premises. Telstra, under the current arrangements, is required to provide this service for a standard connection charge, which is set under the price cap regulations. In addition, the ongoing price it charges for providing this service—that is, monthly line rental and other cost components—must not exceed the amount set under the price cap regulations.

The true economic cost which Telstra incurs is the capital cost of building a connection to a customer, typically in remote or rural Australia, which it might choose not to serve if it did not have a regulatory obligation to do so. That cost can sometimes be very substantial.    But once the connection is built, the incremental cost of providing the service is very low indeed, consistent with the normal principles of telecommunications economics. It is very hard to see the economic logic for calculating the ongoing loss incurred in providing the service and making this the basis for a cross-subsidy.

I want to now turn to the argument that the arrangements set out in this bill are an expensive sham which do not advance the position and which waste a lot of money. According to the explanatory memorandum:

... it is appropriate that the model for delivering universal service and other public policy telecommunications outcomes be reformed to facilitate the competitive supply of universal service and other public policy telecommunications outcomes—

particularly in the context of the National Broadband Network. Unfortunately, the particular reform model proposed is deeply flawed for several reasons. Firstly, these reforms purport to introduce competition so that rather than Telstra automatically being the universal service provider:

... the government will contract with service providers for the supply of these important services.

In fact, this whole arrangement is a sham. The government has already concluded a contract with Telstra—a contract which lasts for 20 years. Far from being a competitive process, as is claimed, the government is simply dressing up an existing contract—a contract which was struck as part of a cosy deal negotiated in secret. Such an approach is all too common from this government—for example, its deal with the big miners in the context of the mining tax.

Secondly, the real purpose of these amendments is to hand another bucket of taxpayers' money to Telstra as part of getting it to cooperate with the NBN. Labor desperately need that cooperation, because if Telstra were instead to compete with the National Broadband Network, the already fragile business case for the NBN would be in complete disarray. The new USO bill therefore sweetens the arrangements that Telstra receives to the tune of a net present value of $700 million, according to Telstra's own estimate.

What is it that taxpayers are getting in exchange and what is it that Telstra is going to have to do differently? To start with, you need to understand that in delivering the universal service obligation today Telstra receives around $55 million a year from its competitors. Under the new 20-year contract with Telstra signed by Minister Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, it will receive $290 million to deliver the universal service obligation and handle emergency services calls. After a couple of transitional years, the government will be tipping $100 million of taxpayers' money into the pot every year. The shortfall, $190 million a year, will be divided up amongst the industry based on market shares—the same mechanism used in today's deeply flawed USO arrangements.

It is true therefore that the amount Telstra pays into the industry pot will increase but that will be greatly outweighed by the much larger amount it now receives. Telstra's net position will therefore improve sharply. On my estimation, it will get over $100 million a year more to do exactly the same things it does today. This is a terrible deal for taxpayers. We will get not one jot more than we get today—namely, a commitment to provide a standard voice service, not a broadband service, to any Australian who wants it at prices as set out in the price cap rules.

Thirdly, far from advancing the position in terms of the service the consumer will receive, it actually goes backwards. Today, there is very little risk or uncertainty in receiving the standard telephone service—the basic voice service—over your existing copper wiring. Tomorrow, as is clear from the explanatory memorandum, there will be significant risks when the copper is turned off and the standard telephone service must be delivered over the NBN fibre to the customer's home. This is why the bill makes provision for $15 million a year for voice only migration, which we are told will fund 'migration assistance and basic rewiring tasks'.

Around one-third of homes take a voice only service on the copper network. Extraordinarily, this vastly expensive new National Broadband Network will in fact increase the risks for customers who only want a voice telephone service and, even more extraordinary, the government is proposing to spend even more taxpayers' money to mitigate a risk that its own policy has created.

Fourthly, this government could not resist creating yet another bureaucratic entity, the Telecommunications Universal Service Management Agency, TUSMA, with a CEO and commissioners, and the capacity to employ staff and retain consultants. Is there any suggestion in the bill that corresponding savings will be obtained from the Australian Communications and Media Authority? What a surprise: under this profligate and irresponsible government there is no suggestion that offsetting savings will be obtained.

Fifthly, these arrangements are part of a grubby and anticompetitive deal in which Telstra is being paid off with billions of dollars of taxpayers' money, and a substantial component of the pay-off, as we have seen, is that Telstra is being relieved of its current USO expenditures. Very concerningly, these arrangement are not competitively neutral but deliver a huge free kick to Telstra compared to its competitors. While it is true that Telstra faces an increase in its own USO levy contribution, almost the entire funding flows back to Telstra and it then gets the government money on top. By contrast, the rest of the industry faces a significant increase in USO contributions after 2014. Telstra has had the benefit of behind closed doors negotiations with the government about this deal. No other industry players have had that opportunity. This is far from meeting the standard of an open, transparent and competitive process. The third thing I want to mention is that there would be materially better ways of approaching this issue if the government were serious about reforming the universal service obligation arrangements rather than simply using this as a sham and a device to shovel more taxpayers' money to Telstra—and get absolutely nothing in return. I do not have a concluded view as to which would be the best approach, but it seems to me there are at least a couple of possibilities. One would be to simply leave the present arrangements in place and leave Telstra as the universal service provider. In practical terms, it will remain by far the dominant provider for much of the next decade. At the present rate, the vast majority of Australians will be connected to Telstra's copper network for many years to come. Even if the NBN ever gets built out to large parts of the country, Telstra is likely to remain the dominant retail provider.

The key reason for the changes in the package of legislation before the House today is a means of shovelling more taxpayers' money to Telstra. Why therefore do we need to have this elaborate and farcical structure of purported contracting-out arrangements—arrangements which will not come into force for 20 years at least? One of the significant benefits of this approach would be to avoid a cumbersome and expensive new bureaucracy and also avoid a further anticompetitive increase in the burden on Telstra's competitors.

Another approach which might be taken—and I do not necessarily advocate this but raise it to make the point that there are other possibilities—would be to divide the USO into two components. The first would be the obligation to provide the physical connection, which would be borne by NBN Co. Given that NBN Co. is incurring massive expenditure to connect homes around Australia this would not be an increased impost. The second would be the obligation to provide a retail service to a person who has a physical connection. That obligation could logically fall on whichever retail provider has the largest market share in a particular geography.

It is difficult for us to do much from opposition to improve the world, but we have put forward two amendments which are sensible. Nobody should take the view that on this side of the House we regard this legislation as effective pro-competitive reform or sensible management. It is not; it is a sham which does not improve the universal service obligation arrangements.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to see these telecommunications bills before the House. I was interested to hear the last speaker. He comes from a company that was in competition with Telstra and of course we heard a continual attack on Telstra and on telecommunications regulations. For the lifetime of the Howard government there were opportunities to modernise the telecommunications of this country. They had control of the Senate and they could have passed legislation, and they chose not to do so. They made all sorts of commentary about that and spent a lot of money saying that they were improving things but they did not do that.

Students in my electorate are begging me to get the old copper networks improved because of the dropouts they have using dial-up when trying to do homework and trying to move forward with their studies. All around my electorate that is continuing to some degree, but I am very pleased to say that since this government came in in 2007 it has worked to put together the National Broadband Network to modernise Australia, to take us into the new era, to position Australia where it should be with modern telecommunications and to receive all the new opportunities that the NBN will provide.

This set of bills will provide some of those reforms, especially the universal service obligation, as well as providing for the legislative framework to create a new statutory agency, to be known as TUSMA. These bills will set up the long-term structure for three existing services and for two new sets of arrangements, and will ensure the important telecommunications safeguards in the change to the National Broadband Network.

The first of the bills, the Telecommunications Universal Service Management Agency Bill 2011, will enable the establishment of the agency responsible for the implementation and administration of service agreements. It will outline the structure, reporting and accountability requirements, and will set out ways to collect industry levies to contribute to the costs of the new structure.

The second bill, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Service Reform) Bill 2011, or the reform bill, will introduce the structure that will enable the minister to gradually lift mandatory obligations from Telstra.

The third bill, the Telecommunications (Industry Levy) Bill 2011, will create a levy that will require related industry participants to help with the costs of the new structure. The levy will replace current USO and NRS levies, and will commence in July 2012. The amount given towards the levy will be based on its eligible revenue. To make a smooth transition to the new levy arrangements, all non-Telstra contributors will not pay more than the combined liability for the USO and NRS levies for 2011-12, and the relevant procedures are in place to ensure this outcome is achieved.

The bills will create new arrangements for existing services such as the universal service obligation to provide reasonable access to telephone services and payphones—very important; the National Relay Service for those with a speech or hearing impediment; and    emergency call services, including plans for handling calls to the 000 network around our country. Telstra has a legislative responsibility for the universal service obligation and the emergency call service, while two other parties provide the National Relay Service. The Telecommunications Universal Service Management Agency Bill 2011 puts in place new arrangements to help the transfer of voice-only customers from Telstra copper to the National Broadband Network and aids in the development of any essential technology solutions that will maintain the continued provision of existing public interest services such as traffic lights and public alarms. This agreement with Telstra will provide for people in Australia who are outside the National Broadband Network fibre areas to continue to have access to voice-only services if they wish and ensures that Telstra will maintain their copper network for this use for the next 20 years.

With the rollout of the National Broadband Network continuing across Australia, these bills will ensure that those who are not covered by the National Broadband Network fibre network will still have access to their services. The National Broadband Network will cover around 93 per cent of Australia's premises. With the introduction and passing of these bills, we can ensure that rural and regional Australia and those who are vision or hearing impaired are not left without relay phone services.

Local governments are working with NBN Co., advising of potential local requirements and helping in the development and distribution of community education about and promotion of the great opportunities that the National Broadband Network offers our communities, especially in rural and regional Australia.

To make things easier, the process of connecting to the National Broadband Network is much the same as the process of connecting a phone. The customer contacts an approved service provider as listed on the NBN Co. website, discusses with the service provider the service that best suits their needs and reviews the pricing plans. Once the customer has made an agreement with the service provider, and products or services are organised, the service provider will activate the service at the property and the property is then connected to that service.

The internet has changed the way Australians live and offers us the ability to get information instantly, with the click of a button. With the technology for this industry quickly changing and advancing, the National Broadband Network will provide Australians with fast and reliable access to the internet. Communities can use the National Broadband Network to help with health concerns, energy management and farm management. In my electorate, mobile phones are used to move pivot irrigators around and, when the spuds arrive at the processing plant, people can be told what condition they are in and whether it is too early or too late to take them out of the ground.

If people in regional areas are connected to the National Broadband Network, a doorway opens enabling them to have instant access to health professionals via videoconferencing, meaning that they can get advice as quickly as they need it. Schools in regional communities also benefit. In Lyons, many regional schools can now offer vocational education and training. This eliminates the need to travel for long periods and enables students to become skilled workers for our state with ease. Training and educating Tasmania's youth will be key for the economy and growth in Tasmania. The NBN will enable students to stay in school longer and then go on to university education, TAFE education or apprenticeships.

Students can attend TAFE online, as well as most universities in Australia and some overseas. TAFE courses can be completed by correspondence alone, while university courses can be completed by correspondence with exams at the end of each section. This means that more people in Australia than ever before have the opportunity to study. The National Broadband Network will make it easier and easier, especially for regional and rural Australia.

When the industry advances, it creates a ripple effect on other aspects of our lives, including telephone use. In Australia, there is movement towards the smart phone. Whether you have an iPhone, a BlackBerry or a Google powered communications device, you are part of a large proportion of Australia's population who use a smart phone. Australians take up new technology at a very rapid rate. I think we are one of the leaders in the world in grabbing new technology. In regional areas of Australia, mobile services often have low coverage and sometimes none at all. People with disabilities and vision or hearing impaired and older Australians have difficulties using the new smart phones. Before you can make a phone call, you need to read the manual or have someone who knows how to teach you.

Most of my electorate of Lyons is regional or rural, and people rely on their phone services for their everyday dealings. I believe that telephones play a large role in the social lives of many in my electorate. In these small communities, the closest neighbour could be five or 10 kilometres down the road and therefore the phone is used as the main means of contact. It is important that people in these communities are able to reach each other. I am sure everyone is aware that social events in small communities keep people happy and healthy, and we need to ensure that we do our part to keep these communications happening. Without these crucial services, people would be much more isolated.

We have the opportunity, in using new technology, to gain quicker access to health, education and university services. New technology gives Australians the option of a different lifestyle and enables people to move out of the cities into small communities. New technology is making regional communities more viable. With the lifestyle in regional communities becoming a viable option for Australians, the populations of these communities will grow. There are many benefits of living in regional communities in Australia. Regional communities are reasonably self-sufficient in growing their vegetables and rearing their animals. Producing and selling things becomes easier if you have access to the internet. Farms provide the opportunity for families to teach their children how to run and manage the farm, and this sustainable and important industry in Tasmania is thriving. We have some great products that come from farms and regional communities in Tasmania, and these bills will ensure the continuity of services that help these communities.

In Lyons we have dairy farms that sell their milk and cheese and we have many vineyards with cellar-door sales and, I must confess, many goat's cheese outlets. We also have cherry farms where you can go and pick your own fruit. These farms create jobs within the local area and provide skills to their workers in the area, ensuring that the skill and work is carried through the generations. Not only do these businesses bring income back to the states through taxes but they encourage people to travel to Tasmania to see the highlights, and those tourists will spend money on accommodation and travel throughout the state.

In conclusion, I believe that these bills are very important to the general rollout of these new services, in that they set up the long-term structure for three existing services and for two new sets of arrangements and will ensure the link of important communications safeguards in the change to the National Broadband Network. This will allow Australians to access the benefits of fast broadband at school, work and play. I support the bills.

Debate adjourned.