EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rule 1989 No. 79
Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Transport and Communications
Subject - Broadcasting Act 1942
Broadcasting (National Metropolitan Radio Plan Regulations)
Subsection 134(1) of the Broadcasting Act 1942 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing all matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed, or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Division 1A of Part IIIB of the Act makes provision for the conversion of certain AM radio broadcasting licences to FM through a system of tendering. Subsection 89DAE(8) of the Act requires licensees submitting a tender to lodge a deposit (which will normally be refunded) with the Commonwealth. Section 89DAH of the Act requires the Secretary of the Department of Transport and Communications to establish a Tender Board which is to prepare a list of tenderers whose bids are acceptable, showing the names of those tenderers and the amounts of their bids in descending order according to the amounts of their bids.
Subsection 89DAH(5) provides that where the bids of two or more licensees are the same, the order in which the licensees’ names appear on the list shall be determined by lot in accordance with the Regulations. Offers of conversion are then made in the order of the list until all available frequencies are taken up.
Section 89DAO stipulates how deposits are to be dealt with. Where a licensee’s name appears on the list, and that licensee’s license is not converted to FM but the licences of other licensees whose names appear on the same list are converted, the deposit paid by a licensee whose licence is not converted is to be repaid and subsection 89DAO(3) requires that interest is to be paid on that repaid deposit. Subsection 89DAO(4) provides that interest is to be paid at a rate determined in accordance with the Regulations. The Minister for Transport and Communications has decided that the interest rate should be set at 14.026%,
which is the rate currently specified in section 10 of the Taxation (Interest on Overpayments) Act 1983 as the rate of interest payable on overpayments of tax.
In order to put these provisions into effect, Regulations have been made in the attached form.
Details of the Regulations are:
Clause 1: Citation
Provides that the Regulations may be cited as the Broadcasting (National Metropolitan Radio Plan) Regulations.
Clause 2: Interpretation
Provides that in the Regulations “the Act” means the Broadcasting Act 1942.
Clause 3: Rate of Interest on Repaid Deposits
Provides that for the purposes of subsection 89DAO(4) the rate of interest payable on repaid deposits is to be 14.026%.
Clause 4: Determining Order of Licensees Whose Bids are the Same
Provides that where the bids of 2 or more tendering licensees are the same, the order in which these licensees’ names appear on the list prepared pursuant to section 89DAH of the Act shall be determined by:
• allotting a number to each of the bids;
• placing in a container objects, each bearing one of those numbers;
• drawing the objects from the container one at a time in such a way that the person drawing them cannot then distinguish one object from another.
The order of the bids on the list is then to be the same as the order in which the numbers allotted to the bids were drawn.
The Regulation also provides that licensees, their representatives, or representatives of associations of licensees are entitled to be present at such a drawing.