10th Mar 2010, 11:58 AM – Senate Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009 — Second Reading — Suspend standing orders

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Liberal Senator Nick Minchin, which was:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving that further consideration of the bill be made an order of the day for five sitting days after the government response to the National Broadband Network Implementation Study is laid on the table.

Because this motion was unsuccessful, the standing orders would remain in force and Senator Minchin would not be able to put his motion.

Background to the bill

The bill relates to the regulation of consumer protection, competition and licensing in telecommunications markets. According to the bills digest, significant changes made by the bill include:

• causing Telstra to be structurally or functionally separated in order to improve competition within the telecommunications markets
• reduce the susceptibility of the telecommunications access regime to deliberate delay and obstruction
• removing a technical impediment to the operation of the anti-competitive conduct regime applying to telecommunications markets
• making the universal service obligation (USO) and customer service guarantee (CSG) clearer and so more enforceable
• extending the obligation to provide priority assistance to those with life threatening conditions to service providers other than Telstra
• enabling breaches of civil penalty provisions - including some concerning the USO and the CSG - to be dealt with by the issue of infringement notices.(Read more about these changes in the bills digest (678 KB).)