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

by leave—I move amendments (10) to (19) on sheet 7669 together:

(10) Schedule 1, item 1, page 16 (lines 18 and 19), omit "a specified service provider from the obligations imposed on the service provider", substitute "a specified class of service provider from the obligations imposed on the class of service provider".

(11) Schedule 1, item 1, page 16 (line 22), omit "a specified service provider", substitute "a specified class of service provider".

(12) Schedule 1, item 1, page 16 (line 25), omit "a specified service provider", substitute "a specified class of service provider".

(13) Schedule 1, item 1, page 17 (line 8), omit "relating to the service provider", substitute "relating to the class of service provider of which the service provider is a member".

(14) Schedule 1, item 1, page 17 (lines 23 to 27), omit subsection 187K(6), substitute:

(6) A decision that is taken under paragraph (5)(b) to have been made in relation to a class of service of providers has effect only until the Communications Access Co-ordinator makes, and communicates to the service provider that made the application, a decision on the application.

(15) Schedule 1, item 1, page 17 (after line 27), after subsection 187K(6), insert:

Decision to be published

  (6A) If a decision is made under subsection (1), or taken to have been made under subsection (5)(b), as soon as practicable:

  (a) the decision must be published on the Department's website; and

  (b) the Communications Access Co-ordinator must take all reasonable steps to notify service providers in the relevant class of service providers.

(16) Schedule 1, item 1, page 17 (lines 29 and 30), omit "a service provider", substitute "a class of service providers".

(17) Schedule 1, item 1, page 18 (line 1), omit "the service provider's", substitute "the class of service providers'".

(18) Schedule 1, item 1, page 18 (line 3), omit "the service provider's", substitute "the class of service providers'".

(19) Schedule 1, item 1, page 18 (line 6), omit "the service provider has identified", substitute "have been identified by service providers in the relevant class".

I will speak to this reasonably briefly, and it will probably seem reasonably technical. These amendments ensure that exemptions which are sought—and I think Senator Brandis has mentioned in an earlier stage of the debate the ability of exemptions to be sought and received—should be uniform. For example, if one provider has IPTV services exempted, then this exemption would apply across the industry. Whatever else we might say about our security agencies, or those intermediaries within the ACMA who are undertaking the implementation of this proposal, they are not necessarily specialists in competition in this very complex, fast-moving sector. The last thing that we want to do is inadvertently tilt the competitive playing field against one carrier over another because of an arbitrary decision such as this that creates a carve-out for one company which then is not applied fairly and competitively across the rest of the sector.

The intention here is deliberately to protect smaller players in the industry who may not have the funding to engage significantly with this new regulatory burden that is being placed over them. While I acknowledge that Senator Brandis has gone into a bit of detail around how this is going to work, this does overlay a new regulatory blanket over the industry, one that the government has been at pains—and the former government, for that matter, to give them their due—to deregulate. And so we do not want to see perverse outcomes, where exemptions sought by one player can convey a competitive advantage over others or where companies, through no fault of their own, find themselves disadvantaged by an exemption carved out by somebody else. So I would be very interested in the Attorney-General's views on why that is not a great idea—unless, of course, he thinks it is a great idea.