Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I am a little surprised that the minister, within 30 seconds, is playing very silly games. As Senator Birmingham has quite rightly said, this is an apparent election commitment. The Prime Minister has apparently reduced Senator Conroy’s responsibilities to nothing other than delivering this. But this is a complete and utter political sham in which the minister himself, as Senator Birmingham quite rightly indicated, has excluded all those people that propriety would indicate should be included in this decision-making process—the Productivity Commission, the ACCC and Infrastructure Australia. I will say more about that later on.

This bill amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to provide for information to be provided by telecommunications carriers to the Commonwealth so that this information can be provided to companies who intend to submit a tender for the creation of Labor’s national broadband network election commitment. The government has promised to connect 98 per cent of the Australian population to high-speed broadband internet services by the rollout of a new national fibre-to-the-node network. Despite the lack of detail surrounding the government’s proposal, the only certainty is that Labor is willing to spend $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money on a broadband plan but has no idea what the money will buy.

This bill recognises that considerable fibre based broadband infrastructure already exists and that any plan to extend the fibre based network is more likely to involve adding additional segments to the current network—a matter that appears to be lost on the minister. For bidders to be able to submit credible tenders, a level of disclosure about what currently exists is required, particularly regarding existing Telstra assets. This requirement has been pressed by non-Telstra proponents, including the G9 consortium. NBN tenders require technical information about certain aspects of the existing fixed network in order to develop and cost their bids, which are due by 25 July.

This bill would insert a new part 27A into the act. Part 27A would set out a scheme for the provision of information as specified by the minister in a disallowable instrument and for protection of the information is provided by carriers. The bill itself says very little about the secure provision of information, only to pave the way for yet-to-be-outlined instruments which basically give the minister the scope to demand sensitive information from telecommunications carriers about their existing network infrastructure—and literally on a whim. Neither does the bill provide any detail or clarity as to how confidential information will be protected from misuse long term after the bid process.

The minister made an earlier threat that, if telcos did not provide information about existing network infrastructure, he would legislate to make them. Despite a willingness by companies to provide information on a voluntary basis with appropriate safeguards in place—which could have been negotiated—the minister quickly pressed forward to deliver on this legislative threat. The minister’s willingness to intervene in the telco sector at the first hint of noncompliance is a worrying sign from a new and inexperienced government, as a key factor for bidders is the future regulatory framework. This exercise could very well be more about the government desperately trying to get hold of information in a belated bid to educate itself about the real status of broadband in this country.

Despite Labor’s negative and disingenuous campaign to talk down existing broadband services, they were well aware that things were nowhere near as bleak as portrayed by them. In a recent report from Commsday, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation—a respected bipartisan US think tank— ranked Australia an extremely credible 12th out of 30 OECD countries in relation to broadband. The report looked at issues such as average download speeds, prices and access. Australia is ranked ahead of the UK, the US, Germany and Italy. It also found that government policy intervention had very little impact on rankings. I am sure the minister would be highly unlikely to attack anything that the Commsday report handed down in relation to these matters.

The demand for telecommunications carriers to detail all of their existing infrastructure and private investment highlights how competition and market forces are driving significant fibre deployment and the rollout of higher speed broadband networks. Last week Telstra, which holds the vast majority of existing fixed-line broadband information, handed over to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy material relating to the network, including details about existing exchanges, pillars and distances through ducts et cetera—material which would assist proponents in costing and developing their bids.

Telstra has long proposed the use of a confidentiality deed, which it believes would protect its interests and the information exchange process. The use of such deeds is quite common in the sharing of sensitive corporate information but, for some unknown reason, the minister has been unwilling to go down this path—despite Telstra’s voluntary compliance. Instead, the minister is happy to set an unrealistic bid deadline, fully aware that potential bidders are yet to have access to crucial information to assist them to develop their proposals. It seems the minister is deliberately trying to make this as complicated and time consuming as possible, so that he will have someone else to blame when he does not meet his ridiculous, self-imposed project deadlines. All Australians should be concerned about a government that rushes to spend $4.7 billion worth of taxpayer funds. In a letter to telcos, Senator Conroy claimed that this legislation would provide strong safeguards to protect confidentiality and allow national security and other concerns raised by some carriers to ‘be addressed if necessary’. These concerns are not explained in the bill.

The opposition has made it clear from the outset that it has no intention of unduly delaying the government in relation to developing its vague national broadband proposal but will not sit silently as the government embarks down a deeply flawed path that is potentially at odds with the national interest. If the government cannot get its act together and turn its broadband sound bytes into substantive and credible public policy, it has nobody to blame but itself. The opposition is committed to assisting the government in making its shambolic NBN process workable and will do so by moving some important amendments. The bill as it stands raises more questions than it answers.

Disturbingly, the government is doing all it can to obstruct the opposition from fully examining this bill in its bid to ensure that it is enhanced. As referred to by Senator Birmingham, the government has used its numbers on the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts to water down the inquiry into this bill. As a result of government imposed gag provisions in the NBN, national broadband network, request for proposals, those companies who are considering submitting a bid have been reluctant to make submissions to the inquiry. It is understood that companies and other industry experts would nevertheless be willing to provide evidence if called to do so, but this move was blocked by the government’s numbers on the committee. So much for transparency in government and, quite frankly, so much for openness in government!

The opposition is committed to doing all it can to ensure that this bill is a clear and detailed piece of legislation that assists with the exchange of existing broadband infrastructure information but at the same time provides adequate safeguards in relation to how this information is used. The first priority is to progress the voluntary provision of this information, with the government including a deed that provides the necessary protections. If this can be achieved, the legislation could exclude from the ministerial instrument power under clause 55(3)(1)(c) those carriers who have complied with a voluntary request. This would encourage and reward voluntary provision, which would in turn facilitate a timely NBN process.

Those who voluntarily provide the requested information should receive the statutory protections in the legislation. Encouraging voluntary provision of information with the appropriate confidentiality and security safeguards, including a legally binding deed between the government and the provider, would be preferable. This way the information is more likely to be provided on a timely basis and therefore not delay the NBN tender. The government’s argument that legislation is required to rope in any carriers who are not willing to provide the information voluntarily and to provide certainty in terms of the confidentiality and security requirements is undermined by the complete lack of specificity in the bill and detail about intended instruments.

The opposition has previously highlighted how the provision of information revealing the actual locality of critical telecommunications infrastructure has very significant law enforcement, national security and commercial consequences. A number of other possible enhancements to the legislation, which would largely reflect normal confidentiality agreements, would be those concerned with limiting the scope of information requests, the use of material provided, redress where inappropriate disclosure causes harm and the way in which material disclosed is handled by recipients. Labor argues that these considerations will be addressed in the yet-to-be-disclosed instruments. We argue that these concerns are central to the purpose of the bill and are too important to be left to future subordinate regulation. I have already stated that the opposition have made it clear from the outset that we have no intention of unduly delaying the government in developing its national broadband proposal, but we will be moving amendments to make the legislation workable.