TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY WELCOMES CONSUMER SAFEGUARDS REVIEW

Sydney, 27 July 2020 – Industry looks forward to engaging with Government to develop a more agile, efficient and fit-for-purpose telecommunications consumer safeguards framework, Communications Alliance said following today’s release of the Part C Consumer Safeguards Review Consultation paper.

“The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have underscored the importance of telecommunications to Australians, and it is vital that the regulatory structure provides suitable safeguards while encouraging innovation” said Communications Alliance CEO, John Stanton.

“Transformative communications technology and its changing and pervasive role in our lives will always create challenges for regulatory structures – particularly for legacy obligations that have been overtaken by developments. The Consumer Safeguards Review provides an opportunity to modernise and streamline the framework, to benefit consumers, industry and the broader economy,” Mr Stanton said.

“In the past decade, we have seen the real cost of telecommunications for consumers decrease significantly, alongside more flexible service plans and powerful, next-generation devices.

“The co-regulatory system in the Australian communications sector – in which Government can set objectives, industry and consumer experts can design the detail and regulators can scrutinise the outputs and enforce compliance - has served the nation well.

“We believe that both co-regulation and formal Government regulation have their place in a modern consumer safeguards framework – and that improvements can be made to the ways in which both forms of regulation are executed in Australia.

“We will work through the detail and the options in the document released today and engage constructively with all stakeholders, in pursuit of such improvement,” Mr Stanton concluded.