Convergence Review highlights 'Freedom to communicate' and 'dynamic content industry'

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 07 July 2011 17:06

IT Policy - Regulation

The Government's Convergence Review Committee has taken its next step on the road to making recommendations to government with the release of an emerging issues paper.

The paper builds on the Committee's earlier framing paper and the submissions received to it, which was in turn based on submissions to the committee's draft terms of reference.

Committee chairman, Glen Boreham, said the consultation process had resulted in the inclusion of two new principles and refinements to a number of others. "We wanted to make the deregulatory nature of the review clearer in these principles, and we also added a principle relating to a dynamic Australian production industry," he said.

The first new principle states: "Citizens and organisations should be able to communicate freely, and where regulation is required, it should be the minimum needed to achieve a clear public purpose."

The paper explains: "The addition of this principle arises from calls in submissions to overtly state the 'freedom to communicate' concept outlined in the foreword of the framing paper, as well as calls to establish the related principle of applying only the minimum regulation or other intervention necessary to achieve a clear public purpose."

This brings the aims of the review into line with the recommendations of last week's high level meeting of OECD member nations.  The communiqué issued after the two day meeting in Paris "recognised that the Internet allows people to give voice to their democratic aspirations, and any policy-making associated with it must promote openness and be grounded in respect for human rights and the rule of law'¦[and] that the Internet economy's success depends upon the free flow of information, which should be promoted and protected."

The second new principle is that "Local and Australian content should be sourced from a dynamic domestic content production industry." The paper explains: "A number of submissions noted that it is insufficient to say Australians should have access to Australian content. It is also important to recognise that a dynamic and capable industry should be able to generate that content. The committee felt this was an important distinction and decided to create a new principle incorporating this idea."

Going forward the timetable of the review appears to have slipped somewhat. The committee had earlier said it would conduct hearings in July ahead of releasing detailed discussion papers in August, and receiving submissions on these by early October. However, submissions on the emerging issues paper are not due until 28 October.

The committee now says it will undertake a nationwide public consultation program and release a number of detailed discussion papers on key issues. The timing of these processes will be posted on its website "soon". It is due to release its final report in March 2012.