Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

As I understand it the minister’s response, he is saying, ‘You do not need this because we can include it as a carrier licence condition.’ I cannot quite understand Senator Ludlam’s reason for not supporting the coalition. This amendment states:

(2)           The Minister may, by legislative instrument, exempt a specified eligible service from the operation of subsection (1).

So we are acknowledging, as Senator Ludlam indicated, and as Telstra and others have said in their submissions, that there may need to be some additional services to layer 2. We are just saying that it should be the parliament that determines this, and that is why this amendment here puts it in. Senator Conroy is saying that the parliament does not need to do it because we can, if we want to, make it a carrier licence condition. That is right: you might do that, but then you might not decide to do that.

This amendment would involve the parliament agreeing that the NBN corporation cannot supply higher than layer 2, except by the minister by legislative instrument, which I assume would be disallowable in the chamber. So it gives the parliament and the people of Australia the ability to oversight this, rather than leaving it to the minister, as I understand his objection, saying, ‘You do not need to do that because we will include it, or we may include it, as a condition of the carrier licence being issued.’ But I repeat: they may not include it as a condition. I am surprised that the Greens and the Independents cannot allow the parliament to have oversight of this rather than just leaving it to the government to make a decision. The end result, as Senator Conroy rightly said, is the same if the government does impose that condition. But if they do not impose that condition then the restrictions on better than layer 2 are perhaps a bit looser. I would have hoped that the Greens and the Independents would have supported the parliament having that role. Being a legislative instrument—and being disallowable—does allow the parliament to have that oversight rather than leaving it to the possibility of the minister including it as a condition of the carrier licence.