The Federal Government is developing reforms to give consumers greater access and control over their data held by companies they do business with, like banks, energy companies and telcos. The Consumer Data Right will allow customers to transfer their data to different providers to see if those providers offer products that would be more suitable, at a better price.

For consumers, greater use and control of their data could provide significant benefits through helping them to find services they need at reduced prices.

In this consultation, The Treasury is asking for comments on the draft legislation that will underpin the consumer data right, before the legislation is introduced into Federal Parliament.

The Federal Government is reviewing consumer protections in telecommunications. The aim is to ascertain whether existing arrangements will be fit for purpose in an environment where NBN is the underlying infrastructure provider, and consumer use of services has changed considerably since the existing framework was developed. The review is divided into three parts:

  • Part A – Redress and Complaints Handling - completed in 2018.
  • Part B – Reliability of Services - launched in November 2018 with submissions closing 18 January 2019.
  • Part C – Choice and Fairness - expected in the first half of 2019.

The review of the Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code has been underway since August 2017. The Code sets out rules for how retail service providers must deal with their customers. It covers sales, customer service, contracts, billing, credit and debt management, financial hardship, and transfers between providers.

The Code is reviewed periodically to ensure it reflects current market offers, trends and consumer needs. ACCAN is a part of the Working Committee (comprised of industry, consumer, government and regulatory representatives) for the review and has consulted widely with its members throughout this process.

A draft TCP Code was recently released for public comment. ACCAN’s submission to this consultation focused on the need to improve consumer protection by strengthening the requirements on providers in a range of key areas. In particular ACCAN would like to see better practices for:

The Regional Telecommunications Review is conducted every three years and is an important forum for examining telecommunications issues and equity of services in regional, rural and remote Australia.

Since the last review in 2015 the rollout of the National Broadband Network in regional areas has almost been completed, and communities and consumers are starting to see the benefits of greater investment in regional and remote telecommunications services. However, for many people in regional and remote Australia the digital divide remains entrenched. There is a need for further investment in infrastructure, targeted affordability measures and digital literacy support programs to close this divide.

In our submission ACCAN has outlined emerging or persistent issues and recommended actions on how these might be addressed. These include:

ACCAN recently submitted to the Department of Communications and the Arts consultation on Copyright Modernisation. The modernisation of copyright has the potential to bring significant benefits to consumers and ACCAN supports reforms to ensure that consumers are appropriate protected and can have confidence when interacting with the copyrighted material.

In our submission, we reiterated our support for reforms including:

ACCAN recently submitted to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) consultation on the Competition Notice Guidelines. ACCAN’s submission forms part of ACCAN’s ongoing work to support competition in the telecommunications industry in order to promote better outcomes for consumers and small businesses. 

The Competition and Consumer Act (Cth) provides for an industry-specific regulatory framework for telecommunications. This gives the ACCC power to issue a competition notice, which is a formal ‘stop’ notice to a provider who is suspected of acting anti-competitively. If a provider does not comply with a notice they face substantial fines - $10m, plus $1m per day for non-compliance.

The New South Wales Law Reform Commission (NSWLRC) has been asked to review and report on access to digital assets upon death or incapacitation. Digital assets can include images, videos, emails, online banking accounts, cryptocurrency, domain names, blogs and online gaming accounts.

The creation of digital accounts, use of digital media and services is common practice amongst Australian consumers. Despite the many ways Australian consumers engage with digital media and online services, there are inadequate legal protections for them and their digital assets after death. This raises questions about the digital legacy deceased Australians leave behind and what should be done to manage it.

ACCAN recently submitted to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) consultation on the declaration of the Domestic Transmission Capacity Service (DTCS).Declaring the DTCS means that wholesale transmission prices on certain routes are regulated by the ACCC. Low DTCS prices means more service providers and more competition.

The ACMA is developing new rules to protect consumers migrating to the NBN, as announced late last year. The ACMA has now consulted on all five measures which focus on improving the way the telco industry handles consumer complaints, the provision of information to consumers, and ensuring that consumers have access to a working service.


 ACCAN has submitted on the: Complaints Handling Standard, Record Keeping Rules, Consumer Information Standard, Line Testing Determination, and Service Continuity Standard.

The Federal Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network is inquiring into the rollout of the NBN in rural and regional areas, focusing on the capacity and reliability of NBN satellite, fixed wireless and fixed line networks. ACCAN has submitted to the inquiry, presenting the major concerns of rural, regional and remote consumers and small business.

Some of the main issues and recommendations in our submission are:

ACCAN submitted to the Treasury’s consultation on the final Open Banking Report and the proposed regulatory framework for the national Consumer Data Right, proposed by the Productivity Commission in its Data Availability and Use inquiry. The Consumer Data Right will oblige organisations to provide consumers with the data that is held about them in a machine-readable format.

As part of its response to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry, the Government announced that the Treasurer would lead the development of the Consumer Data Right, which will be developed first in the banking sector, and then in the energy and telecommunications sectors in late 2018.

ACCAN has an interest in the current consultation as the development of the CDR in banking and its rollout will influence the development and establishment of a right to consumer data more broadly, including in the telecommunications sector.

The .au Domain Administration, auDA, the body that manages internet domain names in Australia, is currently reviewing the domain name policies for Australia’s country code .au through an open policy process. ACCAN has submitted to the Policy Review Panel putting the views that:

  • Australian presence requirements should be strengthened
  • Reserved names should respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names
  • Monetisation should not exist in any new top level registrations
  • Geographic names should be available more broadly, but with protections
  • Existing second levels should be preserved (net.au and asn.au) with others opened up
  • Any changes to WHOIS should incorporate free or low cost access for consumer organisations
  • Domain name suspension policies should be possible for well evidenced misuse and abuse

ACCAN has submitted to the ACCC’s inquiry into NBN’s wholesale service standards. The purpose of the inquiry is to determine whether NBN wholesale service standard levels are appropriate, and to consider whether regulation is necessary to improve customer experiences.

ACCAN has long advocated for reform of existing customer service guarantees for connection times, fault repairs and network reliability. Currently, nbn’s wholesale service standard levels are set out in commercial agreements negotiated by nbn co with retail service providers (nbn’s Wholesale Broadband Agreement). This includes performance objectives and operational targets for nbn co’s products and services, requirements for improvements if targets aren’t met, and an arrangement that allows service providers (nbn’s wholesale customers) to claim compensation for their customers when nbn has failed to meet a service target.

Telecommunication services have always been essential for public health and safety, but today they are a necessity for participation in civic society and transacting with government, for business operations, productivity and growth. ACCAN’s Pre-Budget Submission 2018-19 discusses market gaps and gives recommendations on telecommunications initiatives that will benefit consumers including:

The process for migrating to the NBN is set out in a document called the Migration Plan. The Migration Plan needs to be tailored with each new technology that nbn uses in its network. In this consultation, Telstra has proposed a number of changes to accommodate the Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) technology. nbn plans to use FTTC to connect about one million Australian premises from 2018.

The Department of Communications and the Arts recently commenced a review of Australia’s management of the .au domain by the Australian Domain Authority (auDA). ACCAN submitted its comments on the management framework of auDA and ways to ensure the .au domain continues to serve the needs of the online Australian community.

Communications Alliance, the communications industry peak body, is proposing to deregister and repeal the Call Charging and Billing Accuracy Code (C518). This Code sets out requirements for providers to test the accuracy of their call charging and billing for the standard telephone service (STS).

ACCAN believes the Code contains important detailed provisions to support accurate billing, such as requiring providers to develop and implement a test plan; to use performance indicators for accuracy testing; and compliance reporting requirements. In our submission, we acknowledge that the Code may have declining applicability, but argue that its principles are still relevant. It is important that consumers have confidence that their billing is correct, and reflects actual usage.

Complaints data from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) illustrates that billing for communications services is a significant consumer issue, with 41.9% of the 2016-17 financial year complaints relating to billing and payments.

ACCAN and Internet Australia have jointly submitted to industry peak body Communications Alliance’s consultation on the deregistration and repeal of the End to End Network Performance for the Standard Telephone Service (STS) Code.

The Code sets out technical rules for the performance of standard voice services. These rules mean that voice services operate within acceptable standardised levels of echo, delay and loudness, supporting positive consumer experience. Our submission argues that consumers both need and deserve the high quality of voice telephony supported by the Code.

Communications Alliance considers that C519 no longer holds currency and practical value due to frequently evolving telecommunications technology and the declining use of the STS, and the current scope of the Code.

The ACCC is conducting a Communications Sector Market Study, and has consulted on its draft report following its consultation last year on an Issues Paper. The ACCC’s draft report made a number of recommendations and proposed actions to improve telecommunications market and services for consumers over the next 5 years, which adopted many of the suggestions flagged in our Issues Paper submission.

In consultation with its members and other consumer groups, ACCAN responded to the ACMA’s consultation on the potential for industry self-regulation of the IPND, DNCR, and spam.

ACCAN believes it is in the consumer interest that functions of the IPND, DNCR, and commercial electronic messages are not referred to industry for regulation. 

Passing regulatory functions currently undertaken by government to industry could have detrimental privacy and cost implications. It also has the potential to impact on complaints handling, enforcement and compliance, and the transparency over the ways in which these activities are undertaken.

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