The Senate has voted to set up an inquiry into the pricing and competition regime of broadband, after the initially rejected proposal was enhanced with additional terms of reference.
After the Federal Government gained the support of Independents yesterday to block the inquiry proposed by Labor and Democrats, Shadow Minister for Information Technology Kate Lundy added two more terms of reference to the proposal.
Given the go-ahead by the Senate Thursday afternoon, the inquiry will now also investigate the relationship between ownership of content and distribution of content and its impact on competition -- all in an effort to maximise the capacity and use of existing broadband infrastructure.
Democrats communications spokesman John Cherry will chair the inquiry committee.
"Last month's OECD [Organisation for Economic Copperation and Development] communications outlook showed that Australia was lagging most OECD countries in broadband take-up and that broadband access was more expensive in Australia than in many other countries," said Cherry. "The Senate communications committee asked for this inquiry because the evidence from the OECD and elsewhere shows that current regulatory arrangements are not delivering fairly priced access to broadband for all Australians."
Richard Alston, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, said the inquiry duplicated an existing, twice-extended inquiry.
"We even now have the ludicrous situation where [ALP] Senator [Kate] Lundy has been asking vast [numbers] of questions in the current inquiry about the very matters that will now be examined by this new inquiry," said Alston.
The inquiry comes at the same time the Federal Government is attempting to introduce laws into parliament to sell of the remainder of Telstra.
Alston has stated that Telstra is required by law to provide adequate telecommunications access to all Australians under the Universal Service Obligation, irrespective of who owned the telco.
Cherry, however, counters that "the case for sale of Telstra fails on three grounds -- rural service standards, budgetary impact of the sale and the failure to achieve a proper competitive regulatory system for Telstra."
"Just last week, the ACCC announced a draft decision to cut Telstra's excessive wholesale access charges. This is further evidence that a full sale of Telstra cannot be justified, because the ACCC decision highlights fundamental flaws in the competition regime," he added.
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Would strongly suggest the author of this article learn to use the english language : )