Mr LLOYD (6:51 PM) —I cannot provide the member opposite with a 17-year-old who uses the Internet on a regular basis but with a slightly older person who uses the Internet, does know what e-commerce is about and does know what ISPs are about. I support the efforts of the government in providing legislation in an attempt to ensure that unsuitable material is not available on the Internet, particularly to children, but I do believe that there are some difficulties with the implementation of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999 .

Right at the beginning of my comments on Internet service providers in relation to this bill, I would like to make it very clear to the parliament and to the people of Australia that I wish to declare an interest in the ISP industry, in an environment where some members of the Labor Party seem to think it is a crime for anyone to be involved in small business or to come from a small business background and still have some interest in that business when entering parliament. I wish to make it very clear that I am a joint proprietor with my wife and adult son in a small home based ISP business. This fact was recorded in my 1996 register of interests and again in 1998.

I think at this point it is worth describing what an ISP is: an ISP is a business which you subscribe to and dial in to, enabling you to be hooked up to the main Internet connections throughout the world. Many, if not most, of these ISPs are home based or garage based facilities which take up one room consisting of maybe 10 or 15 incoming phone lines with modems connected and one, usually an ISDN line, going out as a connection to the main Internet. They are not normally large businesses, although there are a number that have grown substantially in recent times.

The only reason my wife and I have our names connected with an ISP business is the fact that it was actually started by my son when he was a minor, and it grew out of a hobby of operating bulletin boards before the Internet was in widespread use. Particularly in rural and regional areas, small home based ISPs are a vital part of the link to the Internet and enable them to become part of the Internet community. In fact, there are still towns in Australia that have the ability and the technology to gain access to the Internet yet cannot afford to attract an ISP to their towns. So it is important that these ISPs remain economically viable to provide this service to their communities.

One of the unintended consequences of this bill might be to drive undesirable and offensive material further into cyberspace, making it even more difficult for filters to detect and increasing the likelihood of accidental access by children or others through site names that have no obvious connection to pornographic or other unsuitable material designed to escape filters. I have consulted extensively with the industry, particularly on the Central Coast of New South Wales in my electorate of Robertson, and have been provided with some practical difficulties, which I believe need to be addressed by the government.

The Central Coast is growing rapidly and has a large commuter population. Governments—federal, state and local—are working very hard at attracting more businesses to the Central Coast to provide more local jobs and are also promoting telecommuting to help reduce the number of commuters travelling to Sydney and Newcastle each day. This has put a great deal of pressure on the available bandwidth for the delivery of data on the lines that we have between Sydney and the Central Coast. Putting filters in place, if they are to be established, will take up more bandwidth—space which is urgently needed to allow the transfer of important data. As I said, this will place more pressure on the available bandwidth.

Another important difficulty that needs to be addressed is that, if there is a perception throughout the rest of the world that the Internet service within Australia is slower or more restrictive than in other places, it may in some way be a restriction on our export dollar or our position within the global Internet market. For example, a local ISP in my electorate hosts a number of business pages for overseas businesses, particularly from New Zealand. These companies could choose to host their pages in any country throughout the world but they have made the decision to host within Australia and to have them managed by Australian companies. If they feel that service through Australia is slower or in any way different or less available than in other countries, they may in fact decide to have their webpages hosted elsewhere. This is something that I believe needs to be addressed.

The Internet and IT industries are growing at a frightening pace, with developments happening by the day. Only a few years ago there were only a handful of entry ports into Australia for Internet services. Back then, it would have been feasible to put filters or restrictions on the types of materials coming through four or five entry points. It is now possible, with the development of satellite technology, for the cost of a $500 satellite modem, to get a direct link to the Internet via a satellite—in fact, even individual subscribers can now get a direct link to the Internet without having to go through a local ISP. Mr Deputy Speaker, unfortunately, time has beaten me. (Time expired)