Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Could I put it to you that it is not clutching at straws at all. Because of the way the legislation is structured, with what is called ‘first-mover advantage’, the first person in the door is advantaged. All of the organisations will know that whoever gets in first is going to have an advantage. So it is quite conceivable that three different organisations—or even two different organisations—will literally be waiting to email, fax and hand in their applications to the organisation. And let us be clear what you mean when you say ‘one person’: ACMA is not one person; ACMA is an organisation.

It is entirely possible that three separate organisations could all put in their applications at the same time, because of the way you have structured the legislation. There must be some way, other than the toss of a coin, to determine which is the first when billions of dollars are at stake. You just have to look at the morning’s stock market, at what happened late yesterday and what will be happening even as we speak. There is going to be a frenzy on the stock market and there is going to be a situation where major players—when there are billions and billions of dollars at stake—are going to want to be first in the door. So there needs to be some thought given to how we are going to process the applications if they are all coming in at the same time—which is entirely possible; it is not clutching at straws at all—when billions of dollars are at stake.