Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Briefly, because these flow on from amendments (1) to (3) that Senator Xenophon moved, I restate the opposition’s general position that we would prefer our amendments, which would ensure the normal operation of the Competition and Consumer Act, to be accepted by the chamber. Notwithstanding that and our belief that we should have the normal testing process, we think that, should our amendments be unsuccessful, Senator Xenophon’s amendments would be of benefit to the operation of the act and would ensure that there is a greater level of test. In particular, Senator Xenophon’s amendment (5) focuses on a national interest test of some description. We have highlighted, time and time again—in relation to the overall basis of the National Broadband Network, which has led to the policies that have driven the government to this legislation around the structural separation of Telstra—that there has been a chronic lack of testing the national interest and whether this is the best way to proceed. We know this test will not achieve all that we had hoped for in that regard. However, we acknowledge that, if our amendments are unsuccessful, it would be some improvement in giving the ACCC the capacity to operate under normal provisions. With that, we support Senator Xenophon’s amendments (5) to (8).