Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Territories, Local Government and Major Projects) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The government remains committed to removing outdated regulation that represents an unnecessary drag on the economy and may, in fact, hamper industry from providing more innovative and competitive products and services to consumers.

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation and Other Measures) Bill is the latest in a series of measures introduced by the government, and is designed to increase productivity and reduce costs to the benefit of industry and consumers. The reform agenda requires continuous commitment, as small improvements over time provide a cumulative benefit. To date, this government's efforts have resulted in the removal of over 3,000 pages of redundant regulation and delivered over $300 million in estimated savings each year for industry and community stakeholders in the communications sector.

As we all know, digital disruption is transforming Australia's broadcasting and communications landscape. New and converging technologies are making traditional regulatory frameworks inefficient or even redundant. This bill addresses outdated regulatory requirements while preserving flexibility for the regulators to adapt to changing industry trends.

The bill includes measures to: streamline account-keeping and licence fee administration arrangements for commercial broadcasters and datacasting transmitter licensees; remove duplication for licensees, publishers and controllers who must notify the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) of changes in control of regulated media assets; implement a single classification scheme for all television programs, including films; and clarify the functions of the ACMA in investigating broadcasting complaints.

The bill will also reduce burden on the telecommunications industry by: removing the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC's) unduly burdensome tariff-filing arrangements; reforming the statutory information collection powers of ACMA and the ACCC to ensure that the information collected from industry remains necessary and relevant; and establishing a framework to enable the telecommunications industry to develop a scheme to self-manage telephone numbering resources subject to the satisfaction of the minister .

The bill also makes various other amendments to remove redundant or otherwise unnecessary legislation.

Account - keeping and licence fee administration arrangements

The bill will streamline account-keeping and licence fee administration arrangements under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 for broadcasters and datacasters.

First, it will remove default audit requirements that apply to certain financial information provided by licensees to ACMA at the end of the financial year as part of the regulator's revenue assurance regulatory task. Instead, a new provision will enable ACMA to request the auditing of financial documents if ACMA considers it necessary. In other words, the presumption is reversed from a default auditing requirement to a risk based approach.

ACMA already has the ability to exempt a class of licensees from these auditing requirements by legislative instrument , and removing the default auditing requirement for all licensees will reduce the administrative burden on licensees.

The bill also provides greater flexibility to regulated organisations by widening the classes of office holders who can make a statutory declaration about the gross earnings of certain commercial broadcasting and datacasting licensees. The eligible classes will be extended to include directors, as well as people authorised by the chief executive officer or company secretary and with knowledge of the financial affairs of the licensee company. This measure reduces the regulatory burden on industry while still ensuring that ACMA can receive the information it needs.

The bill will also allow ACMA to waive small licence fee underpayments where, in ACMA's opinion, it would not be efficient to recover the amount unpaid.

Control notification

This bill will remove duplicative requirements for licensees, publishers and controllers to notify ACMA of certain changes in control of regulated media assets, namely commercial television broadcasting licences, commercial radio broadcasting licences, datacasting transmitter licences and 'associated' newspapers.

The Broadcasting Services Act currently requires licensees and publishers to notify ACMA of changes in the control of a licence or publication. It also requires the incoming controllers to notify ACMA of the same change. By removing the obligation on the incoming controller, the bill will reduce duplication and the administrative burden on affected parties while still allowing ACMA to maintain accurate and up-to-date control registers.

Single classification scheme for television programs

The bill will streamline film classification arrangements for commercial and community broadcasters and open narrowcasters under the Broadcasting Services Act. This will be achieved by repealing requirements for licensees to use the film classification scheme in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 when broadcasting films, rather than the code-based television classification guidelines that apply to other television programmes.

These requirements were originally enacted to ensure consistency between classification ratings applied to films screened in theatre and/or released on DVD or VHS, and when those films are broadcast on television.

Since the enactment of those provisions, the film and television classification schemes have converged to the point where they are largely the same. Accordingly, the original policy intent for the provisions is now redundant. Duplicate classification rules in industry codes of practice and the Broadcasting Services Act are inefficient for broadcasters, who must have regard to multiple classification frameworks for different kinds of content delivered over the same platform.

Repealing subsections 123(3A) to (3D), and related changes to licence conditions, will deliver a single classification scheme for all television programmes, including films.

ACMA complaints handling

The bill will also clarify ACMA's complaints handling and information gathering powers under the Broadcasting Services Act.

Part 11 of that act sets out a framework for making and investigating complaints about licensed and national broadcasters, including complaints relating to compliance with broadcasting codes of practice. In addition, part 13 of the Broadcasting Services Act provides ACMA with a general power to conduct investigations relating to broadcasting, content and datacasting functions. These functions include monitoring compliance with codes of practice and monitoring and investigating complaints concerning broadcasting services.

It is clear, therefore, that complaints of the type referred to in part 11 can also be investigated by ACMA under its broader investigation powers in part 13 and particularly section 170. This was recently confirmed by the Federal Court in Harbour Radio Pty Limited v Australian Communications and Media Authority [2015] FCA 371.

Accordingly, the bill will repeal part 11 and make consequential amendments to part 13 to make it clear that people may complain to ACMA about broadcasting or datacasting services, and ACMA may investigate the complaint at its discretion.

In recognition of the co-regulatory approach to broadcasting services, the amendments make clear that ACMA may, for example, choose to investigate a complaint where the complainant is dissatisfied with the broadcaster's response to their complaint, or where the broadcaster fails to respond to a complaint in a manner consistent with the requirements of the relevant industry code of practice.

Tariff filing

The telecommunications industry has changed dramatically since significant competition reforms were introduced in the 1990s following the Hilmer competition review, and since the privatisation of the then government-owned Telstra.

Reporting requirements designed to ensure that those newly designed competition laws operated effectively have become less effective in aiding prevention of anticompetitive behaviour and disproportionately more burdensome as the telecommunications industry has changed.

The bill will repeal tariff filing arrangements applying to the telecommunications industry under part XIB of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA). These provisions are no longer necessary as there is no evidence that the tariff information provided has assisted in preventing anticompetitive practices. Further, there is already sufficient pricing information available in the public domain.

Information collection

The bill will also reform the statutory information collection powers of ACMA and the ACCC, which have been identified by industry stakeholders as an area of particular regulatory concern.

Section 105 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Tel Act) requires ACMA to monitor and report to the minister (and in turn for the minister to table the report in parliament) each financial year on all significant matters relating to the performance of the telecommunications industry. ACMA obtains information from industry in preparing the report. Though initially providing a high degree of oversight as part of a new regulatory framework in 1997, the policy rationale is no longer compelling close to 20 years later with a mature telecommunications sector.

Accordingly, the bill will reduce the scope of the mandatory ACMA report to focus on the operation of part 14 of the Telecommunications Act, regarding national interest matters, and part 5-1A of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 regarding data retention. ACMA will be free to monitor and report on other issues, if it wishes to do so, providing it with greater flexibility to prepare targeted reports of most benefit to government and industry.

Section 151CM of the Competition and Consumer Act requires the ACCC to monitor and report to the minister each financial year on charges paid by consumers for listed carriage services, ancillary goods and services and Telstra price control arrangements.

The telecommunications market has changed significantly since these arrangements were first introduced. The monitoring and reporting obligations currently in section 151CM, which apply largely to traditional providers, may provide only a limited picture of the contemporary telecommunications market.

The bill will therefore introduce a more flexible regime allowing the ACCC to monitor and report on those services which the ACCC considers are the most commonly used consumer services supplied using a telecommunications network.

The bill will also require the ACCC to review any record keeping rules made by reference to division 12 at least every five years, having regard to whether the information is publicly available; whether consumer demand for the goods or services to which the information relates has changed; and the usefulness of the information to consumers, the minister and parliament.

The bill will substitute the requirement for the ACCC to report to the minister (and for the minister to table the report in parliament) with a requirement that the ACCC prepare and publish each report on its website within three months of financial year end.

Industry-based numbering management

The bill will also amend the Telecommunications Act to enable a transition to an industry-based scheme for the management of telephone numbering resources, provided certain safeguards are met.

The Telecommunications Act currently requires ACMA to make a plan for the numbering of carriage services and the use of numbers in connection with the supply of services to the public. The numbering plan must specify the numbers for use and may set out rules for the allocation of numbers to carriage service providers, for the transfer of numbers between carriage service providers, and the surrender of numbers by carriage service providers.

Industry stakeholders have proposed that numbering management be devolved to industry with potential benefits including faster implementation of new numbering ranges, lower charges and more efficient allocation processes.

This bill will amend the Telecommunications Act to enable the minister to appoint a 'numbering scheme manager' to manage numbering resources on behalf of the Commonwealth under a self-managed industry scheme. The scheme will need to achieve key principles specified in the legislation, including an adequate and appropriate supply of numbers, protection of the interests of consumers, the promotion of effective competition, support for the emergency call service, and the ongoing collection of numbering charges.

Any industry scheme would only commence if and when the minister was satisfied that the scheme met these and other relevant principles. Industry is expected to undertake public consultation in developing a proposed scheme. Any proposed scheme will be carefully assessed and will only be accepted if it meets the high standards implicit in the principles specified in the legislation. In addition, the minister, ACMA and the ACCC will be empowered to issue directions to the numbering scheme manager regarding the management of the numbering scheme.

As an important safeguard, the appointment of the numbering scheme manager could be revoked by the minister if the numbering scheme manager was not managing the numbering scheme in accordance with the principles, or if the minister was satisfied that the revocation was in the best interests of the telecommunications industry, users of telecommunications services, the general community, or national security.

Any industry-based numbering management scheme would be fully funded by industry, however, there are also expected to be countervailing savings for industry from the reduction in ACMA involvement in numbering activities.

The proposed arrangements would have the benefit of giving the industry an opportunity to introduce more efficient arrangements in relation to managing telephone numbering resources while ensuring the continuation of core consumer and competitive safeguards in relation to numbering.

The bill also makes minor technical amendments to the legislation governing the national broadcasters, for consistency and to reflect SBS activities in the converging digital environment.

In conclusion, Mr Deputy Speaker, the government remains committed to removing poorly focused and onerous regulation on Australia's broadcasting and telecommunications industries. This regulation reform process does not end today; it will be a continuing part of the government's productivity agenda.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

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