Senator ALSTON (Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) (6:01 PM) —I think the concern that we have, and I apprehend that Senator Harradine is approaching it in the same manner, is that we do not want a situation where someone can simply say, `This might be a bit expensive for us, so don't impose the burden.' We want to ensure that, whatever precise word is used, it is considered in the individual context. In other words, if you are looking at the impact on a particular ISP then you strike the balance and you will have regard to `technically feasible' and `commercially viable' in the same way as you look at whether it is `unnecessary' or `undue'.

I suppose the worry we had about `unnecessary' was that it might involve determining in the abstract what is necessary and then applying that irrespective of the capacity of any individual ISP. As long as we accept that the intention is to allow case by case assessment to be made, I think we could probably live with `unnecessary', because I would then be confident that it would be interpreted in such a way that it will allow for those variations. If it does not, you can have the converse of Senator Harradine's point. Once you have decided that a burden is unnecessary for one purpose, you simply apply that automatically to everyone else, and a lot of other people might then find that they can get away with things which they could well afford to fix up. So, if we proceed on the basis that it is part of a case by case analysis, I do not think there will be a difficulty.