Senate Committee ACMA Findings Due

The Senate’s Communications Committee, examining the merger of the ABA and the ACA, is scheduled to report its findings today in Canberra.

The committee has been holding public hearings and has received 23 submissions about the merger, which is being made necessary by the convergence of telecommunications and broadcast technologies.

While most submissions have been positive towards the idea of a merged regulator, such as the proposed ACMA, some differing points of view remain around the balance of powers of any new body and its consumer role.

Optus’ Paul Fletcher has summed up that approach saying it is about: “its charter in protecting the interests of consumers or other stakeholder groups and, on the other hand, the desirability of an efficient, competitive and growing telecommunications sector.”

The Australian Consumers’ Association has told the committee that “between the ABA and the ACA falls some significant holes and problems in terms of jurisdiction for consumer complaints”.” The Association suggests the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman should be reformulated as a communications industry ombudsman so it could pick up all complaints.

Several submissions have criticised previous regulatory regimes, saying the economic competitive model has failed.

Free TV Australia has repeated its view, made earlier in the process in conjunction with Commercial Radio Australia, that a merger is not necessary, but given that is will go ahead, it recommends a low level ‘administrative merger’.

Free TV says the new board that will control ACMA should have people on it who have a practical and commercial understanding of the industries that are subject to regulation, and that its composition is balanced” between the various sectors it will regulate.

The Communications Law Centre has submitted that more rather than less change is needed and has recommended a further enquiry once ACMA is set up. The CLC is particularly interested in the uncertainty of regulations regarding content on mobile devices and the penalties the regulator could impose for breaches of regulations.

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance agrees new regulatory structures are required to deal with new technology and convergence, but says it doubts how a new authority will be able to do any better job at taking a strategic view of these issues than its predecessors. It wants a full blown review of communications policy in Australia.

The possibility of the ACCC having a say in the competition aspects of telecommunications has also been discussed in several submissions. Fletcher summed up some of the views on that topic as seen from the telecommunications point of view:

“As we indicated in our submission, it is a bit of a live question when you are considering regulatory design in the communications industry as to whether the industry specific regulator also has competition powers.

“As we have noted, the previous regulator, Austel, did have competition powers specific to the telco industry, and Ofcom has competition powers to a greater extent than ACMA will have. So, clearly, there are arguments that one can put as to why you would add competition powers into the other powers that ACMA has.

“On the other hand, the position today is that the telco specific competition powers are with the ACCC and have been since the 1997 legislation was introduced. During that time, the ACCC has built up a considerable body of expertise. It has a number of people in senior roles who have worked in the ACCC with a focus on the industry since that time. That is a valuable resource.”

Legislative action to merge the ABA and ACA into ACMA is expected by mid year.