EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rule No. 386 of 1988 Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Telecommunications and Aviation Support
Subject - Telecommunications Act 1975
Telecommunications Regulations (Amendment)
Section 112 of the Telecommunications Act 1975 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing all matters which by the Act are required or permitted to be prescribed by the regulations, or which are necessary or convenient to be prescribed by the regulations for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Subsections 11(1) and (2) of the Act provide that the Australian Telecommunications Commission (the Commission) may make determinations fixing or varying rentals and charges for telecommunications services and other services that the Commission provides under the Act.
Subsection 11(6) of the Act provides that the Commission shall publish in the Gazette particulars of rentals and charges determined by it, other than prescribed rentals and charges.
The Minister for Telecommunications and Aviation Support decided that regulations should be made to prescribe certain rentals and charges determined in relation to specified Commission services for the purpose of subsection 11(6) of the Act.
The Telecommunications Regulations (Amendment) inserts a new regulation 40A in the Telecommunications Regulations (subclause 2) to provide that, for the purposes of subsection 11(6) of the Act, rentals and charges in respect of the supply of certain telecommunications services set out in the proposed regulation are prescribed rentals and charges. The services to which the new regulation applies are:
• the supply and installation of customer premises telecommunications cabling;
• the supply, installation and maintenance of value-added telecommunications services; and
• the supply, installation and maintenance of customer equipment other than small business telecommunications systems.
Subregulation 40A(2) gives an exclusory definition of “value-added services”.
The regulations commence on 1 January 1989, the date that the Commission is required to compete in the market place in relation to the prescribed services. The regulations are necessary as the Commission would otherwise have to gazette commercially sensitive information, which would limit its ability to respond quickly and flexibly to any developments in the pricing practices of its competitors.