James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2009. I welcome the bipartisan agreement that we have in this House on this bill because of the importance and the nature of its composition, particularly in light of recent events concerning the bushfires in Victoria and the floods in Northern Queensland. The Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2009 amends the Telecommunications Act 1997 to allow information contained in the integrated public number database, known as IPND, to be disclosed for the provision of telephony based emergency warnings and for the supply of location dependent carriage services, known as LDCSs.

Emergencies by their very nature are unexpected. Not everyone is listening to the radio, watching TV or surfing the internet. Calling people is the most direct way to contact as many people as possible to provide the information they need in a time of emergency. The integrated public number database is an industry-wide database of all residential and business phone numbers, both listed and unlisted, and associated subscriber information, including name and address information. The IPND was established and is maintained by Telstra as a condition of its carrier licence. Given the personal nature of the information contained in the IPND, such as telephone numbers, names and addresses, the access to the information in the IPND is strictly limited under the Telecommunications Act. This bill takes privacy seriously.

Section 276 of the Telecommunications Act effectively prohibits the disclosure or use of the IPND information by carriers, carriage service providers or their contractors. An exception to this prohibition permits the release of IPND data on a case-by-case basis, subject to Telstra, the manager of the IPND, coming to a belief on reasonable grounds that the release is reasonably necessary to prevent or lessen a serious or imminent threat to the life or the health of a person. This information is fair, reasonable and responsible. This is not only for a serious emergency; it will allow for emergency warning systems to be tested. This will allow emergency management organisations to be ready to issue telephone based warnings in response to smaller emergencies, such as chemical spills, and larger disasters, such as the recent Victorian bushfires, the floods in Queensland or cyclones in Western Australia or the Northern Territory. In times of emergency, we need to be able to communicate and contact people. Often time is the issue, so a quick response to a situation can be of great benefit to our emergency service workers for the safety of the rescued and also the rescuers.

Information obtained from the IPND may only be used for the purpose of providing warnings about specific emergency events. It is anticipated that these messages will be recorded voice messages providing appropriate advice to telephone subscribers about the nature of the emergency and any recommended actions that are required. A very important issue in this, however, is the protection of the millions of names, addresses and telephone numbers that are listed in the IPND. These will be both listed numbers that are in the telephone book and the unlisted numbers of people wishing to keep their identity and location secret for a range of personal, safety and professional reasons. I stress that this bill has strong privacy requirements and reporting obligations, and penalties of up to two years imprisonment for any unauthorised use or disclosure of the data. This means those who receive information from the IPND and then misuse it—for example, by using it to locate someone for a personal reason or selling the information to a telemarketer—are breaking the law and will potentially go to jail for up to two years.

The government will know when a communication event occurs. Whenever an emergency warning is activated using the IPND information, emergency management persons will be required to report to the Attorney-General and the Australian Communications and Media Authority, known as ACMA, as soon as practicable after each disclosure occurs. Details of these reports will include the nature and the location of the emergency, the number of telephone numbers that were disclosed, the date the disclosure occurred, the number of persons to whom the information was disclosed and the reason it was justified. The intention of these reporting requirements is to allow for any unauthorised use or disclosure of the IPND information by any person to be identified as soon as possible and to enable enforcement action to be undertaken.

In the light of recent events, there has been a lot of soul-searching, although, even with the best intentions in the world to contact people—via telephone, via radio, via the internet—unfortunately it does not guarantee that there will be no loss of life. But we can truly say that, by being prepared, giving fair warning and doing everything we can, we have done as much as possible to prevent any loss of life and limit damage to property.

I was privileged this week to have a presentation from the Bureau of Meteorology. They showed me the satellite photographs of 4 February, looking down on Australia from space, and you could see the huge plumes of the Victorian fires. That was three days before Black Saturday. It is pleasing to know that the Bureau of Meteorology really is owned by the Australian community. I was pleased to find out that there are over 7,000 volunteers across this nation who regularly and willingly supply weather details to the bureau on a consistent, regular and reliable basis to help the bureau in their forecasting and prediction of weather events. That really is the spirit of this nation. When we think about the volunteers who have gone to the Victorian fires—those who have come from overseas and those who have come from all over Australia out of human compassion, kindness and motivation to help their fellow Australians who have suffered so much—it truly has been heart-rending and moving.

The sad thing is that there were certain areas that did not have phone coverage. I know—and I know it is in the hearts of members on both sides of this House—that we are going to do everything we can to rectify that. It is pleasing to know that so many volunteers have mobilised, and part of that mobilisation is the communication through media. I am privileged to know a member of the emergency services here in Canberra who today has given up the opportunity to go to Queensland for his nephew’s 21st birthday party. He is going to spend four days with his volunteer colleagues fighting the fires, which are predicted to get worse this weekend. That is the dedication—that is the heart—of the Australian spirit that is embodied in our volunteers who mobilise selflessly to give help and to help others.

As I said previously, even with the best intentions and the best warning systems in the world—and God knows we need them—we cannot prevent some disasters, like earthquakes, causing widespread devastation. Of course, when we say earthquakes, here in Australia we think of Newcastle. There are many lessons to be learnt there. Also, when the tsunami hit, even with all the warning buoys that are out in the ocean that monitor temperature and wind and wave movements, even with all of those warning systems, it was still difficult to prevent so much loss of life. I recall that, up in Queensland, in the seat of Dawson, a number of years ago a warning was issued to the Premier at the time, Peter Beattie, that there had been an earthquake under the ocean and that a tsunami-like event was going to hit the coast of Queensland. Needless to say, that put everybody on high alert, but the event did not happen. It is better to be warned and for the event not to occur than to have no warning at all.

We as a government and as a nation need to do some serious cost-benefit analysis in investing in our warning systems and services, particularly investing in the Bureau of Meteorology. With the Bureau of Meteorology, along with all the systems that we have available on the internet and the radio, I can honestly say that we have tried and done the best we can to give the best warning. I fully support this bill.

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