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

It is going to be both, as Senator Xenophon interjects quite correctly. But I think everybody has a reasonable expectation of being told before it passes into law rather than after what that balance is going to be—no-one more so than the same telecommunications providers who are going to have this impact on their bottom line. That is going to have, without doubt, an asymmetrical impact on the industry, because there are companies out there with hundreds of millions of dollars on their balance sheets competing against start-ups that might be only a couple of weeks old. That will also impact on the way companies make their argument when they come after the government to recover costs. I suspect that if you can afford some of the best QCs in the country to put together your cost submission you are likely to run a better argument and get a better hearing than somebody running a company from their garage.

Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton put it the following way. He said:

… it was unreasonable for the Government to push for the legislation to be passed into law before providing detail on its commitment to contribute to up-front capital costs that consultants estimate could cost more than $319 million.

"We are not asking Senators to block the Bill, but simply to delay its passage until Government provides some detail about the contribution it has promised to make—given that telecommunication users will inevitably shoulder much of the burden of any Government shortfall," Mr Stanton said.

…   …   …

Mr Stanton said the Government should spell out the dollar value of its contribution, or at the very least the percentage of the total cost that it will contribute.

So, Senator Brandis, maybe rather than continuing on I will ask you now whether the government has reconsidered its view that we ought to blindly pass this bill without having the faintest idea of how much of taxpayers' money the government will contribute. Or, if you are not willing to do that, could you at least put to us a rough proportion or percentage of the total cost that the government will contribute? Keep in mind that a lot of people—not 100 per cent, but a lot of the Australian population—strongly object to being forced to have their taxes go into being spied on. That is why it has come to be known as the surveillance tax. But at the very least let's find out the quantum or proportion of the surveillance tax. Any information that the Attorney-General is able to provide will contribute to and greatly assist the course of this public debate because the sum total of information you have put into the public domain thus far is approximately zero.