Senator XENOPHON (8:05 PM) —I assume that Senator Birmingham wants me to answer the questions that were put to the government and to Senator Ludlam and myself in relation to those amendments. There are three areas where authorisations need to be sought from the ACCC, because not to do so might mean that it would fall foul of the Competition and Consumer Act.

I will clarify this as it is late and it has been a long week. I think Senator Birmingham knows that as well as most, since he has the carriage of this for the opposition. This is about ensuring that when the ACCC provides an authorisation that authorisation must take into account that whatever things were being done had to be reasonably necessary in order to achieve uniform national pricing for that basic service. In the government’s earlier incarnation of this—the government’s own amendments—the concern was expressed by some, such as Associate Professor Zumbo and others, that it could have had the effect of giving an opportunity for preferential pricing to take place, which would be entirely inconsistent with the fact that those preferential pricing provisions that were previously in the legislation have now been knocked out, which I think is unambiguously good for the smaller carriers and unambiguously good for consumers.

I hope that that explains, Senator Birmingham, that this is about the authorisation process so that in order to provide an authorisation you need to show that those acts that could be, arguably, in breach of the Competition and Consumer Act had to be reasonably necessary for the achievement of uniform national pricing. That is a much safer way of not allowing backdoor price discrimination, which would be bad for consumers.