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

It is the height of arrogance from the executive, and executives of many different governments end up guilty of it, Senator Conroy, but it is the job of the parliament to worry about what a future minister may do. When we pass legislation through this place it is not passed just for the next six or 12 months, unless it has a sunset clause on it, or for any particular period of time. It is passed indefinitely until such time as the parliament changes it. It is passed in a manner that applies to all future ministers, equally to all of them, equally to you and to whoever comes after you. Senator Ludlam might come next if the Greens and Senator Brown get their way and manage to knock you guys off as the majority party on the left of Australian politics. I look forward to Senator Ludlam sitting there. I am not sure whether I would look forward to Senator Brown sitting down here, but I would look forward to Senator Ludlam sitting there and following you. I hope, of course, that it is Mr Turnbull who follows you as minister.

However, the point for the minister is that reserve powers need not necessarily, should not necessarily, be unfettered reserve powers. Reserve powers are simply powers to be used sparingly in exceptional circumstances, yes, but those powers still need limitations attached to them as well. I understand, obviously, the minister is not about to budge on the coalition's amendments but I do think, in wrapping up the debate around these amendments, that it is important to understand that they seek to achieve two particular goals.

One goal is to ensure that, whoever the minister of the day is, they do not have an unfettered capacity to impose regulations and criteria on the industry for the laying of optical fibre in a manner that advantages NBN Co. and that disadvantages private operators. The second goal is critical to all of this. It is the overall objective of the opposition's amendments to ensure that some choice, some competition, actually remains in the deployment of fibre in greenfield sites. I have argued this case many times before, so I am not going to go over it at length.

Senator Conroy interjecting—

You know, Minister, that attitude diminishes the chance of votes. If you had listened to what I was saying you might have noted that I was attempting to provide some concluding remarks around these amendments and to sum up the opposition's arguments for them. Perhaps that would lead to a vote. So, Minister, do not be too quick to jump to your judgment on these matters. In particular do not be too quick to provoke, because you never know where provocation may lead sometimes.

As I was saying, there are two key attributes to these amendments. One is providing some restriction on the executive power to put in place regulations that could advantage NBN Co. and disadvantage private providers and private competitors in the optical fibre space. The second is to ensure that we have some level of competition in this space and that we do not have the ridiculous situation where you pretend developers have a choice between having fibre laid by a private provider or having fibre laid by the NBN Co. when in fact, commercially, there is no choice because a private provider will charge for the service and NBN Co. is going to be offering it for free in terms of direct costs. Quite clearly that is going to drive many, many private providers out of business. You will not admit that in the chamber but the opposition has heard the concerns, has acted on them and has presented these amendments.

I would hope and urge the chamber and in particular Senator Ludlam and the Greens to reconsider their opposition to these amendments. They will not stop fibre being laid in new developments around Australia. They will not impact, one iota, on who gets fibre or who does not. All they will do is ensure that people who have been innovators and done the right thing and gone into this space and built businesses for the purpose of laying fibre get the chance to continue to do so. That is all it is about. It is about a fair go for Australian businesses who have done the right thing and been pioneers in this space and who are going to be shut down as a result of the government's legislation. I would urge the Senate to support the amendments.