And Conroy says Labor is not alone in its frustration: "There is almost universal consensus amongst industry participants and observers that the current competition regime is ineffective." This, in Conroy's opinion, "was vividly demonstrated recently by the ACCC's failure to lay a glove on Telstra in response to its outrageous broadband price squeeze of last year."
Conroy said that the planned inquiry will seek to address three major issues. Firstly, "the development of a detailed plan to ring-fence the operations of Telstra Wholesale from the rest of the organisation" will be addressed.
A whole raft of legislative provisions could relate to this issue, according to the Senator, ranging from requiring Telstra to wholesale services to its retail division on an equivalent basis to other retailers, to the filing of contracts between wholesale and retail arms to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Further options include requiring more stringent controls on independent governance of the separate wholesale and retail arms as well as the flow of information within the company.
Secondly, Conroy highlighted the need for a plan to be developed that would ensure "that optical fibre cable is laid throughout Australia as soon as possible". Lastly he discussed "the development of an updated Universal Service Obligation (USO) that reflects the changing technological needs of Australians".
Importantly, the Senator said the inquiry would be public and "will allow interested parties to put their case". This, he said, was unlike the government's scoping study for the privatisation of Telstra that was conducted in a private fashion.
Information about the inquiry is available from Conroy's office. Conroy notes in the provided document that he will move that the Senate refers the inquiry to the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee, and that the Committee will have until 23 June this year to report back. The closing date for submissions from the general public will be 11 April.
