Mr HARDGRAVE (8:36 PM) —I am sure all on this side welcome the endorsement from the member for Perth for the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Bill 2000. From the comfort of opposition, it is understandable that he would put those caveats on the record. The government has to deal with matters because we are in government. We have responsibility for trying to get good policy frameworks in place in an ever evolving, constantly changing, dynamic industrythe Internet industry. To try to keep pace with the change that is driven by technology, as I have said on many occasions with similar matters, is a very big challenge for government in 2000 and beyond.

The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Bill 2000 establishes the sort of safety net framework that you would expect from a responsible government that understands that private initiative, private endeavour and the private pursuit for reward for effort will be more likely to drive matters such as who gets what particular part of cyberspace. Cybersquatting was an issue raised by the member for Perth. I guess as speculators are always going to be in marketplaces as they develop, cybersquatting is something that will not necessarily be easily handled by any government, at this point in time anyway.

What is important is that the ongoing, effective and consistent work of the government to meet its goals and commitments in relation to establishing some legal and regulatory framework and an environment for this industry to grow in is contained within this bill. The information economy is growing at an exponential rate. It is the economy of today and of the future, and I pay tribute to the stewardship of the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston. His dedication to inspiring all of his ministerial colleagues to get their departments online has made this country, and the government that is administering this nation, stand out from the crowd of nations. We are online in ways that no other nation around the world is online. So this government understands very well the importance of the information economy.

We also want to send a signal to people in this industry that, if they cannot get their collective acts together and if they cannot actually come up with a way and a means to properly allocate the dot au categories, be it dot net, dot com or dot org—and some of them are more difficult to get than others—the government will be there. So, if that industry self-regulation does not work or the administration is mismanaged some time between now and the future, there will be some safety net in place. So this legislation is all about providing some certainty as those small and sometimes large steps in this sector take place. The government is reinforcing its powers to safeguard public interest in electronic addressing services, such as Internet domain names. It is crucial to our national good and the future of businesses—fledgling as so many of them are—as electronic commerce and its addressing systems will become the basis of identification for so many transactions that ordinary Australians make with those businesses.

Getting a domain name is in itself the absolute necessary step if you want to go through that gateway and into the world of e-commerce. Macgregor High School, Mount Gravatt High School, Macgregor Primary School and so many other schools in my electorate have gone through that gateway. They understand that they have to present themselves and their products to not just the people in the local area, not just the people in the city of Brisbane and not just the people in the state of Queensland or those in Australia, but those around the world. People are able to find schools—not just non-government schools, but government schools—in my electorate that are effectively using e-commerce as a means of marketing their very splendid services. That in itself is where the world is heading. So the government is right to look in a cautious way at just what should and must come, and, if it does not come, to make sure there are some safeguards there for those who expect the safeguards to be in place.

It is not just the opposition which is supporting this bill. Supporters of the initiatives in this bill include the industry, the Internet Industry Association, Melbourne IT, which is the predominant domain name registrar in this country, and auDA, the au domain organisation established by this government as we made those series of steps towards certainty. It is worth having a look at this organisation, and honourable members can find them at a very easy web site, www.auda.org.au. They are a not-for-profit organisation and fully self-funding. They were established by the government in 1999 to address so many of the concerns and to ensure that the development of this sector was done in a good way so that competition could be properly established on a solid basis and that the industry itself would be in a position to run its own game, so to speak. I compliment the organisation on their accountability and their transparency, because basically everything this organisation have done is on the Net. Isn't it a tremendous advance to see that something established by government to serve the people of Australia is easily accessible and totally and completely accountable, not just through the parliament but also through the Internet?

The key achievements of this organisation to date in meeting various objectives set out by the Howard government are many and are worth noting here on the parliamentary record. Contracts have been executed with delegates for the second level domains—.net.au, .asn.au, .csiro.au—and the registrar for .com.au, generating a revenue in excess of $840,000. So they have certainly met that self-funding criterion established by the government. They have a healthy and sustainable revenue stream based on a sound financial and business plan. Planning is under way to ensure that this organisation will be fully funded in a post-competition market.

Another one of their objectives was to be inclusive of, and accountable to, members of the Internet community including both the supply and demand sides. They have adopted a membership structure which encompasses all aspects of the Internet community. Members of each class are guaranteed representation on the board. The board has striven to ensure that business is conducted in an open and accountable manner, and that is certainly evident by their Internet site. They have adopted completely that open, transparent and consultative process. The `aim to enhance benefits to Internet users through the promotion of competition, fair trading and provisions for consumer protection and support' was another one of their objectives established by this government. To do that, they have established various panels to specifically examine competition and name allocation issues, and they are looking to implement the recommendations of these panels once those recommendations are forthcoming. As a result, they are also looking at additional panels to address fair trading and consumer protection issues, including dispute resolution and service levels. All the various other objectives that this organisation have set about establishing are also on their Internet site.

It is worth recording in the Hansard my appreciation of the efforts of this organisation in realising so many of the aspirations that the government set for them just a couple of years ago. We are well down the path to getting a very responsible system in this particular part of telecommunications policy, despite the constant challenges that technology is providing to us as legislators. We are always going to be a few steps behind technology, so it is right that we give the industry a chance to self manage. It is right that industry, which best knows where things are going to go to next, and which part of what seems like science fiction will become practical fact, decide what is actually going to be adopted. It is not really up to us as legislators to prescribe certain technical outcomes, just as we did not in the seventies prescribe that everyone should have Beta video cassettes, which were technically superior to VHS. How wrong we would have been if we had gone on the technicals in those days. Rather, we allowed the industry to self manage.

I look forward to the continuing work of auDA. I look forward to the continuing commitment of this government to realising good and sensible legislation, such as that which is before us today. I appreciate the support of members on this side, through the government's backbench policy committee for communications, IT and the arts, of which I am the secretary and of which the honourable member for Hinkler is the chair—and a very effective chair he is. I also place on record my appreciation of the opposition's support for this sensible legislation before us tonight.