Birmingham, Sen Simon

Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia) (18:25): I will bark a little longer. Minister, I appreciate your outlining the mechanism under the existing act and outlining the mechanism for the process of self-regulation. But this bill appears to provide you and future ministers with an unfettered capacity to impose government regulation on the industry in this space. You may choose not to go down that path. You may choose to simply apply the regulation developed by the industry through the mechanisms you have described. Or you or a future minister may choose under this bill to do whatever they want and to disregard that process for the application of self-regulation. My concern is not with how the current act works; my concern and my question are how this bill will work—and you can give us assurances at present about how you as minister will treat the matter, but as I said before you will not be the minister forever— Senator Williams: Yes, that's for sure! Senator BIRMINGHAM: Senator Williams has his eyes on the communications portfolio, you know, Senator Conroy! Senator Conroy: God help the country! Senator McEwen: We'll have carrier pigeons everywhere! Senator BIRMINGHAM: That is right! Inverell is going to have a gold-plated service! To come back to the point: the question really is particular to this bill. If you have such confidence in the industry self-regulatory requirements that are there at present and they operate effectively to ensure that the industry has a good self-regulatory standard in place, why do you need in this bill the capacity to set the conditions and specify an instrument that is specified in clauses 372B(4) and 372C(4)? Why do you need those provisions if the self-regulatory standard that you outlined before works so effectively?