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

The opposition oppose clauses 10 to 16 in the following terms:

(2)    Clauses 10 to 16, page 15 (line 9) to page 17 (line 32), clauses 10 to 16 TO BE OPPOSED.

I move this, noting the comments that Senator Xenophon has made and the comments that the minister has made already about the amendments that the government has moved to do with these issues. But it does come back for the opposition to a point of principle. The point of principle is the very basic one that we have spent a very long time already debating in this place, and that is whether the NBN is genuinely a wholesale only network. What the government has written in here is a raft of exemptions—exemptions for transport authorities, electricity supply authorities, gas supply bodies, water supply bodies, sewerage services bodies, stormwater drainage services bodies and state or territory road authorities. There is a raft of exemptions in each of those categories. We would start from the principle and the premise that it would be better for the government, who proclaim that these exemptions might be necessary—they do not say that these exemptions are necessary—to curtail the NBN as much as possible from day one to ensure that its mandate is restricted as much as possible from day one. That will ensure that it is ring fenced—and I have used that phrase before—from broadening its scope or range of activities outside of being a wholesale only provider.

We would further note that, while the arguments have been put that these types of entities, these utilities, may need to access the type of service that the NBN Co. is offering or that the NBN Co. may be able to develop a special offering for these utilities, we equally would argue that the retail service providers may be able to develop a special offering needed by these utilities. We do not see that it is necessary to start out on this process of developing the NBN and of setting its operational framework in place by weakening it by providing exemptions from day one, from the get go. It would make far more sense for the government to not have these exemptions and for the government to be open to hearing sound and rational arguments that can be put to the public on a case-by-case basis as to why perhaps there should be some exemptions some time in the future. But as to giving blanket exemptions now, although the government’s amendments that were just moved tighten it a little and at least stop these entities from onselling, we see no reason why, at the outset, these entities should have immediate and ready access. That is why the opposition maintains its opposition to these exemptions within the bill.