Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

In response to Senator Ludwig’s comments, it has been said that the government put out a discussion paper. They did not just put out a discussion paper; they put out a decision. They announced a cabinet decision. Why is it that after having made the cabinet decision more than six months ago there now needs to be work done with affected stakeholders?

With respect to the minister, this is not a complex issue; it is a very clear-cut issue. It is far less complex than a lot of the matters that are in other schedules in this legislation. It is just as relevant to the matters before us as all of the other 12 schedules in this legislation. Many of the schedules in this legislation could have been stand-alone schedules. The 12 schedules do not interrelate; they do not interconnect in some sort of intrinsically interwoven package. This is totally validly part of what is before us today. That is why Minister Ruddock announced the government’s decision at the same time as he announced all the other changes and decisions that are reflected in the legislation.

For the minister to simply say, ‘We’re still talking with affected stakeholders,’ frankly does not answer the simple question: if further work is required, does this mean that the government have changed their decision? Does the cabinet decision and the decision announced by Minister Ruddock still stand? We could at least get that on the record.

In implementing this change there is obviously a prospect of some sort of financial impact down the track. Nobody knows how much, because if it went to the Copyright Tribunal nobody knows what market value they would determine. So it seems to me that you could not do some sort of adjustment package until you knew what sort of adjustment would be needed—assuming there is any adjustment assistance needed, which is another issue.

I appreciate that Minister Ellison is not Minister Ruddock and he is not in a position to be persuaded by my arguments. Well, I am sure he can be persuaded by my arguments but he is not in a position to vote in accordance with the persuasiveness of my arguments even if he was persuaded, which he probably is! But he could at least clarify for the record whether the cabinet decision to remove this cap still stands as part 1.

Some of the most obviously affected stakeholders are those who continue to be affected by having their income constrained artificially—which are performers and record companies. Are they amongst the stakeholders that work is being done with?