Submissions


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ACCAN recently submitted to the Australian Treasury’s Pre-Budget consultation to provide our views on priorities for the 2024-2025 Australian Budget. Our submission calls on the Federal Government to address the barriers faced by consumers in accessing affordable, quality, and reliable telecommunications by:

ACCAN recently submitted to the Department of Social Services consultation on the Australian Government response to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.

The 222 recommendations provided in the Disability Royal Commission (DRC) are a significant opportunity for Australia to create impactful, lasting, and positive change across a variety of critical areas for people with disability, including access to communications products and services.

ACCAN recommends that the government response to the DRC should include:

ACCAN provided a submission in January 2024 in response to a request from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to comment on NBN Co’s proposed Cost Allocation Manual (CAM).

The CAM sets out NBN Co’s proposed framework for the allocation of costs between ‘core’ monopoly services and competitive non-monopoly services. The attribution and allocation of costs has a profound effect on the wholesale prices ultimately faced by residential and small business consumers of monopoly core services.

ACCAN recently submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority consultation on draft captioning quality guidelines. 

ACCAN welcomed the development of captioning quality guidelines which clarify the ACMA’s interpretation of quality requirements in the Broadcasting Services (Television Captioning) Standard. The guidelines addressed some of the concerns raised with ACCAN by consumers including latency, timing, readability, and the essential nature of captions that are meaningful.

ACCAN recently submitted to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts' Discussion Paper: Carriage Service Provider (CSP) registration or licensing scheme for the telecommunications industry.  

ACCAN supports the creation of a registration or licensing scheme (RoLS) for the telecommunications market. A RoLS represents an important component to ensure the telecommunications market works efficiently for all participants. An RoLS would: 

ACCAN recently submitted to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts' consultation on extending telecommunications security reform instruments.

ACCAN supports extending the Telecommunications (Carrier License Conditions—Security Information) Declaration 2022 and the Telecommunications (Carriage Service Provider—Security Information) Determination 2022 for 18 months while the Australian Government consults on longer term telecommunications security arrangements.

ACCAN recently submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) consultation on the Proposed Telecommunications Financial Hardship Industry Standard (the draft standard).

ACCAN considers that the development of the financial hardship standard is a critical improvement in consumer protections for telecommunications consumers. ACCAN acknowledges and welcomes the actions by the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland and the ACMA to progress the development of these protections.

ACCAN is supportive of the contents of the draft standard. We are pleased to see that it:

ACCAN recently provided a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications on the Optus Network Outage (the Outage) occurring on 8 November.

As with all mass outage events, the Outage on Wednesday 8 November caused significant disruption across Australia. It inconvenienced customers, closed businesses, and disrupted access to essential services. In ACCAN’s view the Outage highlighted systemic issues that require renewed attention.

While there is significant policy work underway to address network reliability issues, the Outage raises the question of what reliability settings are appropriate, in an environment of widespread uptake of and reliance on connectivity. Answering this question requires consideration of the social and economic costs of disconnection, which should inform policy decisions with respect to reliability frameworks.

ACCAN recently commented on the C555:2023 Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) Industry Code.

The IPND provides an important public asset for emergency calls, emergency warnings and law enforcement.

ACCAN is pleased to see that the revised code provides:

ACCAN recently submitted to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts (the Department) consultation on possible amendments to the Telecommunications in New Developments Policy – Mobile Connectivity and Other Measures. ACCAN supports the proposed changes, and we further recommend the Department:

ACCAN recently submitted to the Department of Social Services (the Department) on the National Housing and Homelessness Plan (the Plan). ACCAN recommended that the Plan consider digital inclusion to facilitate the active and equal participation of people experiencing housing precarity and suggested the Department:

ACCAN recently submitted to the ACCC 2023 Strategic Review – Compliance and Enforcement Priorities 2023-24. ACCAN supports the ACCC maintaining the following priorities into 2024-2025: