George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to the issue of cost, as I said in my contribution on the second reading of the bill, there have been long discussions between government and industry. The government has indicated that it will make a substantial contribution to capital cost. I refer you to the estimate in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report as to the likely average cost per customer per annum. Those discussions have not been finalised. Ultimately, this is a matter that will be determined in the budget process.

In relation to the locality of hosting the storage of data, the bill does not mandate a particular locality. It casts, as you know, an obligation on the ISPs to retain metadata. It is really quite a simple requirement. How they retain the metadata and where they retain the metadata is a matter for them; it is not mandated by the bill. The only thing that is mandated is the type of metadata that is to be retained and the duration of the retention obligation. One would expect that the ISPs would retain metadata in a manner and at a locality which was least costly to them.