Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens will be supporting this batch. As Senator Birmingham noted, amendment (5) is a particularly valuable one. We have sought, as Senator Xenophon has done and I suppose as the coalition has done as well, to insert at every important juncture a reminder to regulators that what we are considering here is not just competition—which is important but it is only a subset of what the telecommunications sector should be providing—but the national interest, the impact of structural reform on consumers and competition in telecommunications markets.

I also foreshadow that two of Senator Xenophon’s amendments, (6) and (8), are identical to two Australian Greens amendments. When we get to the second page of the running sheet, we will not be moving ahead with Australian Greens amendments (3) and (6) on sheet 7006. So we will start moving things along a little bit quicker.