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

I recognise that we are probably about to go to question time, but maybe I will just put this question on notice for the minister and his officers to consider in the interim. You have put examples to us to show that this is a term of art that is been used in other acts. I ask whether, in any of the other examples the minister wants to name, that idea of desirability is actually determinative as to whether or not the regulator uses its powers—as to whether or not the regulator actually does its job—or whether it has been interpreted in more peripheral ways in other acts? I thank the minister for acknowledging that it does exist in other acts. I am not familiar with the one that he cited. But to me it seems wide open to allow a regulator, in any field at all, to decide whether to do its job not on the basis of, 'Ignore the frivolous and vexatious stuff,' but, 'Just if you happen to feel like it.' I would still be seeking any criteria that ACMA would be forced to use as a benchmark, which, again, would form part of any future judicial review of a particular decision that might be contestable. And I ask: would ACMA have an obligation to inform complainants that it chose not to investigate that particular complaint because it found it to be not desirable? So my question is: just what is that feedback process going to be either in terms of annual reporting to the parliament or reporting directly to the complainant?