Senator MARK BISHOP (12:29 PM) —I wish to make a few points about the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Amendment Bill 1999. I note in passing that the minister is not in the chamber. I have a question to go to the minister in due course. Is Senator Vanstone handling the bill?

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Sherry)—Senator Vanstone can handle the bill until the appropriate minister arrives, if that is going to be the case. You can proceed, Senator Bishop.

Senator MARK BISHOP —The second reading speech identifies a bill about minor administrative amendments to the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999. Those amendments go only to the facilitation of collection of the national relay service levy and subsequent payment to the national relay service provider. The opposition do not oppose those amendments. We did not oppose them in the House; they went through in one or two minutes. We do not oppose those relatively minor administrative amendments in this bill.

A series of amendments were circulated by the Australian Democrats last Thursday in the chamber. Those amendments go to the issue of phone sex, an issue being whether you have opting in to phone sex provisions or opting out of phone sex provisions. The amendments circulated by the Democrats last week and shortly to be the subject of discussion were very similar but not identical to, as I understand it, amendments put and lost by the opposition in discussion of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act when as a bill it was before the chamber towards the end of June last year. Those amendments then put by the opposition provided for a different form of opting in for those consumers who wish to avail themselves of phone sex services, and the amendments circulated and put by the opposition last year essentially followed a path of public policy requirements, delegating an authority of government to develop appropriate regulations if consumers choose to opt in to phone sex services offered by various providers around Australia.

As I said, there was a both intensive and extensive discussion of that particular issue whilst we were discussing the series of Telstra 2 privatisation bills. The opposition forcefully argued at that stage for its amendments. They were put and were eventually defeated. The amendments were defeated on the voices because, when the vote was called, the Democrats, through their representative at the time, chose not to participate in the decision or did not vote. Consequently, the amendments put by the ALP at that stage were lost. The Democrats, somewhat after the event—the following day, from memory—indicated that they did not think that the call of the chair at that stage had been correct and they sought to reopen that debate through the Senator Margetts, who was a senator in this place at that time. The ALP took the attitude that the requirements of the chamber were that, if you were to reopen a debate which had been resolved, there had to be a substantial reason for reopening the debate. We invited both the Democrats and the Greens at that time to put their reasons publicly on the record as to why the debate should be reopened and the vote recommitted. The representatives of neither party put any reason at all as to why the debate should be reopened—simply saying that they had, as I recall, missed the vote and wanted to have another chance. We were of the view that that was not an adequate reason for reopening the issue, and the vote did not proceed any further. Accordingly, the original vote stood, the bill was passed in both houses as required, became an act of parliament, was proclaimed and is in operation.

Coming now to the amendments that have been circulated by the Democrats, as I said, they were substantially similar to the amendments we put last time, voted for and lost when the vote was called. When the shadow spokesperson for communications, Mr Smith, was contacted by a representative of the minister's office some time in the last week or fortnight, we indicated that the bill then circulated went to minor administrative matters. We were of the view that it was of no great consequence; we were not opposed to the material contained in the bill as tabled by the government. We indicated to government that we were quite prepared to treat the bill as non-controversial legislation. The first we became aware that there were any matters in dispute was when the Democrat amendments were tabled in the chamber late last week or earlier this week. My office was not contacted and advised in any way that the Democrats would be circulating amendments, and Mr Smith's office has advised me that his office or staff were not contacted in any way as to the purpose of the Democrat amendments. So when they were tabled in this place, it came out of the blue to us. Accordingly, it having been scheduled as non-controversial legislation and being the subject of dispute, necessarily the government had to adjourn the bill into government business for consideration.

That is a bit of the background. What I want to ask the minister or the minister's representative is: if the Democrats proceed with their amendments to the bill that are on phone sex, will the government be supporting those amendments? If the government supports those amendments as circulated by the Democrats, the amendments will get up, presumably go down to the other place and get up there. If the government opposes those amendments, that means two things can occur. The opposition can vote with the Democrats, and the amendments would get up. If that is the case, they would then be returned to the upper house in the face of opposition by government, would be overturned or rejected in the House and sent back to the Senate for further consideration. The opposition is of the view that such a course of action would be a waste of time, a waste of public money and achieve no purpose at all. So I ask the minister: will the government be opposing the Democrat amendments? If the government indicates that it consents to the Democrat amendments, the opposition will go along with that. If the government opposes the Democrat amendments, the opposition will maintain the commitment it gave to treating the bill as non-controversial and will also oppose the amendments.