EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Issued by the authority of the Australian Communications and Media Authority
Datacasting Charge (Amount) Amendment Determination 2008 (No.1)
Datacasting Charge (Imposition) Act 1998
Purpose
The Datacasting Charge (Amount) Amendment Determination 2008 (No.1) (the Amendment Determination) amends the amount of charge set by the Datacasting Charge (Amount) Determination 2001 (the 2001 Determination).
Legislative Provisions
Section 6 of the Datacasting Charge (Imposition) Act 1988 (the Act) imposes a charge on a transmitter licence held by a commercial television broadcasting licensee in respect of a financial year during at least part of which the transmitter was used to transmit datacasting services in digital mode under the authority of a datacasting licence issued pursuant to Schedule 6 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992.
Subsection 7(1) of the Act empowers Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to determine the amount of charge imposed on such a transmitter licence in respect of a financial year.
Subsection 33(3) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 provides that where an Act confers a power to make an instrument, that power shall, unless the contrary intention appears, be construed as including a power exercisable in a like manner and subject to like conditions, to vary that instrument.
Background
Charges for Free to Air (FTA) broadcasters for their datacasting services are based on revenue, and set by the 2001 Determination, made under subsection 7(1) of the Act.
The Explanatory Statement for the 2001 Determination (at Attachment 2) specified that the datacasting charge should be imposed at the same rate as the charge for broadcasting revenue. A key reason for this was to avoid potential revenue shifting. However, the 2001 Determination contains a drafting error that has the effect of imposing a datacasting charge that is 100th of the intended rate. This comes about because the formula for calculating the charge is divided by a denominator of 100, while expressions within the formula are already expressed as percentages, meaning that they have already been divided by 100.
Operation
The Amendment Determination corrects a drafting error in the 2001 Determination by removing the final division by 100 in the formula in subsection 4(1). This has the effect of establishing charges on datacasting revenue at the same rate as charges on broadcasting revenue.
Consultation
In January 2008 ACMA provided the draft amendment determination to active and potential affected industry with a two week period in which to comment on the proposed amendment to the charge set by the 2001 Determination.
There were no submissions received during the consultation period.
Regulation Impact
ACMA obtained advice from its SES contact officer for the Government’s regulation impact analysis arrangements that the Amendment Determination has no or low impact. Consequently under the self-assessment regime administered by the Office of Best Practice Regulation, ACMA has determined that there is no need to produce a Business Cost Calculator report or to prepare a Regulation Impact Statement. The ACMA RIS exemption reference number is ACMA 033.
The Department of Finance and Deregulation advised in November 2007 that ACMA is not required to prepare a Cost Recovery Impact Statement.
Attachments
Details of the Amendment Determination are in Attachment 1.
The Explanatory Statement for the 2001 Determination is at Attachment 2.
ATTACHMENT 1
NOTES ON SECTIONS
Section 1 Name of Determination
This section provides for the name of the Determination.
Section 2 Commencement
This section provides for the Determination to commence on the day after it is registered.
Section 3 Amendment of the Datacasting Charge (Amount) Determination 2001
This section provides that Schedule 1 amends the Datacasting Charge (Amount) Determination 2001.
Schedule 1 Amendment
Item 1 Amount of charge
Item 1 replaces the formula in subsection 4(1), which sets out the way in which the amount of datacasting charge imposed on a transmitter licence in respect of a financial year is to be calculated, with the amended formula.
ATTACHMENT 2