EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Radiocommunications (Licensing and General) Regulations (Amendment)
Statutory Rule No. 314 of 1989
Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Transport and Communications
Subsection 93(1) of the Radiocommunications Act 1983 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing 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.
Section 24 of the Act provides that the Minister may grant to an applicant a licence to operate and to possess specified radiocommunications transmitters or radiocommunications transmitters included in a class of radiocommunications transmitters.
Subregulation 2(5) of the Radiocommunications (Licensing and General) Regulations (the Regulations) provides for the specification of different classes of licence in Schedule 1 of the Regulations.
Item 22 of Schedule 1 of the Regulations previously provided for a class of licence known as “earth station, Australian satellite service”.
The Minister for Transport and communications decided that, as part of new arrangements to be implemented in relation to Video and Audio Entertainment and Information Services (VAEIS), the class of licence specified in Item 22 should be modified to provide for two new classes of earth station.
The two new classes are:
• earth station, Australian satellite service, Class A
- means an earth station, other than an earth station in the AUSSAT service, the operator of which has entered into an agreement with the Commonwealth for the purpose of providing video entertainment services by means of the earth station; and
• earth station, Australian satellite service, Class B
- means an earth station, other than an earth station in the AUSSAT service or an earth station, Australian satellite service, Class A, that is established for the purpose of providing access to an Australian satellite.
Thus the Class A stations are those non-AUSSAT earth stations used in the provision of VAEIS, and Class B stations are all other non-AUSSAT earth stations.
The Minister also decided to clear up ambiguities in the descriptions of some of the other classes of licence caused by an overlap in the definitions of “land mobile service” and “narrowband area service” in regulation 2 of the Regulations. New definitions are substituted for “land mobile service” and “narrowband area service” in regulation 2 and for “narrowband area station, Class A” and “narrowband area station, Class B” at items 68 and 69 respectively in Schedule 1 of the Regulations. Also a new general definition of “narrowband area station” is introduced.
Details of the amendments to the Regulations are as follows:
Principal Regulations
Clause 1. Provides that for the purposes of the amendments the Radiocommunications (Licensing and General) Regulations are the Principal regulations.
Interpretation
Clause 2. Substitutes in regulation 2 of the Principal Regulations new definitions of “land mobile service” and “narrowband area service”. Also introduces a new definition of “narrowband area station”.
Schedule 1
Clause 3(a). Omits item 22 in Schedule 1 of the Principal Regulations and substitutes new “item 22 Earth station, Australian satellite service, Class A” and also introduces new “item 22A Earth station, Australian satellite service, Class B.
Clause 3(b). Omits items 68 and 69 in Schedule 1 of the Principal Regulations and substitutes new “item 68 Narrowband area station, Class A” and “item 69 Narrowband area station, Class B”.