Senator COONEY(12.49 p.m.) —On the consumer protection issue, in the present act you have section 38, which talks about the quality of standard telephone services. That section is headed `General functions—protection of public interest and consumers'. Why is new proposed division 6 confined to issues of the period that it takes to connect customers and the period that it takes to offer customers arrangements and such matters? There is a whole division on that sort of thing, yet issues of quality are left to section 38.

Why don't you put the two concepts together? Why do we separate the concepts? When you say that there is not much in the way of punishment there at the moment, as I understand it, there are quite heavy penalties proposed already under civil proceedings for failing to obey Austel direction—up to $10 million, for example. All I really want to know is why you separate those two things out.