The Competitive Carriers' Coalition (CCC), consisting of AAPT, Hutchison, Macquarie Corporate, PowerTel and Primus Telecom, called for the inquiry initiated by Senator Alston in December last year and terminated last week to be reinstated.
"It is clear from submissions to the inquiry that competition policy for telecommunications is deficient and that policy makers now have an obligation to the public and industry to have the issue debated. To dismiss it as part of a political stunt is unconscionable," said the CCC.
"The many individuals, organisations and companies who took the time and effort to contribute to the House of Representatives inquiry, only to have it cancelled the day before its first public hearings, deserved the opportunity to contribute to policy debate and development," read a statement by the CCC.
The inquiry received 57 submissions in the short time they were accepted. Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde told ZDNet Australia the inquiry was a good way to "start a proper discussion on the future of Telstra and the structure of our industry." He added the political baggage created by the decision to abandon the inquiry means it will be harder to bring back the debate in a few years.
"This reveals it was just a political stunt with no concern for the well-being of the [telecommunications] industry," said Budde. He said the telecommunications policies of the two parties were now exactly the same. "We have a one party system in Australia at the moment."
Budde feels a structural separation of Telstra would be good for the giant telco in the long term. "Structural separation should be able to get rid of at least 50 percent of the legislation we have," he said, pointing out that if Telstra were competing with other telcos on a level playing field it wouldn't need to be fettered.
David Havyatt, AAPT's regulatory director, told ZDNet Australia that while AAPT didn't have a view on the structural separation of Telstra, they were concerned about the overall industry structure.
"While AAPT thought the inquiry was very appropriate at this time, it should have been seen as an overall inquiry into industry structure (and therefore about regulation), not Telstra's structure (and therefore about ownership)," said Havyatt. "It is particularly depressing the way the politics is played out without any analysis of the serious questions to be asked about the telecommunications regulatory environment."
Not everyone disagrees with the government's move, however. "I think it's a good idea they've abandoned it because once half of Telstra was sold there was not much point doing anything except selling it off," Dennis Muscat, general manager of Pacific Internet told ZDNet Australia .
According to Muscat, accounting separation - where the wholesale accounts are reported separately from the retail accounts - makes much more sense than the legal separation that was proposed. Muscat said legal separation would be very complicated, while accounting separation would give a much better understanding of the profit margin in the two businesses.
"Then we would know if the wholesale price included any cross-subsidies to the retail price," he said.
