Senator CROWLEY (6:00 PM) —I wish to speak on this report, Internet commerce—To buy or not to buy? I know that a number of our colleagues would also like to speak on this report, but there is a pressure of time here. My colleague Senator Hogg has made a number of the points that I would like to make, but I do believe that it is well worth stressing again the importance of this report. As Senator Hogg has said, this is the first time anything like this has been addressed by this government. We were advised in the hearings that not many other parliaments have actually tackled the issue as this report does.

The first and principal reason was a concern that there might be a serious potential or already real loss of tax revenue through commerce on the Internet. It has certainly been interesting to find that the response of other countries and governments to our inquiry is strongly in praise of it, suggesting that it might be useful for other governments to be doing the same thing. There are a few points that I want to highlight. On page 4, paragraph 114 reads:

The Committee's investigation of low value imported goods led to the first detailed study of the quantity, value and types of good entering Australia under the screen free limit. Australian Customs officials advised the Committee that this data would not have been collected were it not for the Committee's inquiry.

Indeed, I think it is yet another case for why our parliamentary committee serves such an important purpose and properly can lead to different accountability from the bureaucracy. Here the Australian Customs Service point out that they have never provided this data, they have never done the research as they have never had to before and were provoked to do so by the request from our committee, the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit. They have found it invaluable and will continue to do further research in that direction. So, apart from the data they provided, which Senator Hogg has referred to, the process of properly—I suppose I could say `managed'—addressed questions through the parliamentary committee process does serve the community very well indeed.

Senator Hogg made a point regarding the data in this area. This report draws a bench line that says that data in this area is `wild to woolly', but at least we now have a report that points out how seriously insufficient the data is. From here maybe we will start to take steps to get some better data. The figures that he cited of, I think, 300,000 to 1.6 million users are slightly different from the page of data that I find in the same report that cites 500,000 to four million Internet users. I would suggest that the range between 500,000 and four million lacks precision. I am glad you laughed, Senator Parer; it is actually what I call heavy irony. But it indicates that by and large we have no idea.

I am reminded that while we rush to make decisions about the Internet and information technology and concerns are raised about the potential for tax loss by commerce on the Internet, we also seem to forget that in many places in Australia people have no access to the Internet at all. Some will never have access because of the poverty of their own circumstance. Others will not because they have no access to the necessary cabling or infrastructure.

I am reminded of a quote that I remember President Clinton gave when he addressed us here in the House of Representatives. He said that, while we can be concerned about the importance of information technology, we should not forget that something like 66 per cent of the world's population are two days walk from the nearest telephone. I think those figures would not accurately describe the number of people in Australia who lack access, but we certainly know that a significant number in our community do not have access. So, while we must be concerned at what is happening at the end of town that is very much involved in the area of commerce and trade, we must also be sure that we do not forget those people who do not have access.

I turn to page 25, where the profile of a computer user is described. An average user is `male, tertiary educated, high income earning and aged between 20 to 49'. That is supposed to be data from June 1996 to December 1997. The next line or two down says:

In the same period the user rate for females has increased from 12 per cent to 20 per cent.

I join many people in this community who are concerned that this is another area that will discriminate against women. Government and parliaments must make the effort to ensure that computer accessibility is not yet another discrimination between haves and have-nots or, in this case, between men and women.

The last point that I would like to make refers to a comment on page 20. It is evidence provided by Mr David Shetliffe in the transcript of 5 November. That is not the complete footnote, but if anyone wants it it is in the footnote on page 20 of this report. The evidence states:

There are opportunities for retailers in rural areas to be more competitive, to access supplies at better rates and supply products to local consumers better than they currently can. By the same token, there are opportunities for city retailers to sell directly into country areas. Country consumers are likely to be beneficiaries of this kind of trade, and it will greatly increase the range of goods that they can get.

I am currently chairing a Senate inquiry into regional unemployment. In a number of cases witnesses have been asked about the access to employment and trade and commerce through the Internet in rural and regional Australia. Most of the witnesses in rural and regional Australia have burst out laughing. They think it is very funny that we should consider the prospects of trade on the Internet when, as they say, they sometimes cannot even rely on their telephones working.

So perhaps we should not overlook President Clinton's comments about the percentage of the world population that does not have access. In Australia, we should also be very concerned at the number of people in rural and regional Australia who have no access. If we build government policies or policies that might be designed to help rural and regional Australia but we do not have the basic facts and data about what is out in rural and regional Australia—or, indeed, in this case, what is not out there—we can make decisions that are very wrong.

Finally I want to make some comments about a round table meeting we had of, amongst others, representatives from the tax office and the customs department, a small business representative from the fishing area, bank representatives and a major retailer. A number of points were raised at that round table meeting. The most important point, as far as I was concerned, was that all of the people there said that they had benefited enormously from it because, by and large, they never had the opportunity to talk to each other. This, of course, might be interesting if you are thinking about the private sector having a rare opportunity to speak to the public sector, but it is particularly interesting when you find one federal department saying that they rarely ever speak to another federal department. I thought that was a particularly interesting assessment. This is not to literally quote, but to paraphrase the benefits of this round table as I appreciated from the day.

The other thing that was important was that all of these different departments and contributors used a different language. So, someone from Tax speaking to someone from Customs or someone from Customs speaking to someone from small business or the banking industry would need to be aware of the specificity of their language. Indeed, one of the benefits of that round table day was that a number of the people recognised those differences and difficulties that previously they had been completely unaware of.

This is a very valuable and useful report, particularly in the data it has and the way it highlights what very significant further research and work needs to be done in this area. In commending the report, I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned