Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019 [2019] AUSStaCSBSD 164 (5 December 2019)

• Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019
• Significant matters in delegated legislation 31

---

Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019

Purpose	This bill seeks to amend various Acts in relation to telecommunications to: • amend the superfast network rules to clarify the default structural separation requirement; • introduce a statutory infrastructure provider regime; • introduce a funding mechanism for regional broadband services
Portfolio	Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts
Introduced	House of Representatives on 28 November 2019

Significant matters in delegated legislation ^[31]

1.66 Schedule 4 to this bill, along with the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2019, seeks to establish an ongoing funding arrangement for fixed wireless and satellite broadband infrastructure through a new industry charge to be known as the Regional Broadband Scheme. Schedule 4, among other things, seeks to establish the types of broadband services subject to and exempt from the charge, penalties for avoiding the charge, and information gathering and disclosure powers and information reporting obligations.

1.67 Proposed subsections 76AA(2), 79A(1) and 79A(2) would give the Minister the power to determine, by legislative instrument, that one or more classes of carriage service be excluded from the definition of 'designated broadband service', and to determine whether a location is taken, or not taken, to be 'premises', for the purpose of the Regional Broadband Scheme.

1.68 The explanatory memorandum notes that as ministerial determinations made under these provisions would alter the tax base, it is appropriate to give the Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise and disallow the determinations before they take effect.^[32] To this end, the bill seeks to modify the usual commencement procedures for these determinations.^[33] Proposed subsection 102ZFB(3) improves parliamentary oversight of these determinations by ensuring that they do not come into effect until after the disallowance period has expired. The committee welcomes this modified commencement procedure. The committee also welcomes the inclusion of proposed subsection 102ZFB(3A) which provides that where a notice of motion to disallow a determination has been given, and the motion has not been considered within 15 sitting days, the determination will be taken to have been disallowed.

1.69 While the committee welcomes the modifications to the disallowance procedures for these determinations which improve parliamentary oversight, the committee also notes that these ministerial determinations relate to important matters which could impact on the tax base under the proposed Regional Broadband Scheme.

1.70 The committee therefore draws its scrutiny concerns to the attention of Senators and leaves to the Senate as a whole the appropriateness of allowing the Minister to make determinations which could impact the tax base via delegated legislation.

1.71 The committee also draws this matter to the attention of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation for information.

---

[31] Schedule 4, item 13, proposed subsections 76AA(2), 79A(1) and 79A(2) and section 102ZFB. The committee draws Senators’ attention to these provisions pursuant to principles 1(a)(iv) and (v) of the committee’s terms of reference.

[32] Explanatory memorandum, pp. 178 and 206.

[33] The usual commencement procedures are contained in section 12 of the Legislation Act 2003.