Nationals selling out regional interests: Industry

James Riley
Tuesday, 20 October 2009 14:09

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Industry groups have attacked Coalition plans to delay regulatory reform legislation for the communications sector as ludicrous and damaging, and have accused the Nationals of selling out the interests of regional Australians.

Primus Telecom chief and TERRiA Access Seekers Association chairman Ravi Bhatia said the plan was "cheap politics" and that consumers and businesses in under-served regional areas that would be the ones hurt by the delays.

The telco reform package may have been sacrificed as "collateral damage from the ETS," Bhatia said, with the Nationals compelled to follow shadow communications spokesman Nick Minchin's opposition to the bill to keep an illusion of Coalition unity.

"This decision appears to go against the Coalition's previously stated policy to improve services for regional Australians.  The Coalition needs to explain why such a change in policy has come about, and why it has decided to abandon regional Australians," Bhatia said.

The legislation would deliver a raft of regulatory reforms aimed at improving competition in the sector and includes provisions that could lead to the mandated separation of Telstra's wholesale and retail business, and the divestiture of its Foxtel assets.

Senator Minchin announced earlier today that the Opposition would seek to defer consideration of Stephen Conroy's industry reforms until the completion of the Government's national broadband network implantation study. The plan had been approved by a joint party room meeting and endorsed by shadow Cabinet, Senator Minchin said.

Competitive Carriers Coalition executive director David Forman said the issues had been discussed at length over many years, and that a delay simply harmed consumers, particularly those in regional areas.

"No-one has more to gain from this than people living in regional areas – who the Nationals represent," Forman said.

Queensland Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce told iTWire he is already on-the-record saying Telstra should have been structurally separated a long time ago. But with limited sitting days left in the year and with energies now focused on the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation, the bill needed time to be properly considered.

"We will be constructive in the process. But I am not going to sit on the back of an ETS and have a gun put to my head for the next piece of legislation," Senator Joyce said.

"To be completely pragmatic, if they've got the numbers to get it through without us having had a little bit more time … good luck to them," he said. "I will have a look at the legislation when it turns up (in the Senate,) but we need a bit more time than we are getting being jammed into a corner with it next week."

Key Nationals senators were not in the joint party room meeting as they attended Senate Estimates hearings. It is not clear whether their attendance would have made a difference to the outcome.

Nationals leader Warren Truss said the reforms were flawed and that the party wanted debate on the bill deferred until Government completes implemention study in relation to broadband roll-out in Australia.

Primus' Bhatia reform bill was not directly connected to broadband roll-out, but was rather "that addressed the long standing structural issues in our industry."