Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy said legislation was introduced today to ensure new homes were connected with infrastructure to deliver superfast broadband.
The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Fibre Deployment) Bill 2010 provides the legislative framework for having superfast fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure installed in new developments across Australia.
The Bill introduced today amends the Telecommunications Act 1997 to provide a legislative framework for the installation of optical fibre and fibre-ready telecommunications infrastructure.
The framework allows the Minister to set out, in subordinate legislation, which kinds of developments need to have optical fibre installed and which ones need to be made fibre-ready.
The Minister may also specify conditions for both fibre and fibre-ready facilities in order to ensure they meet technical and service standards.
Details of the subordinate legislation will be publicly released by the Government in the coming weeks, before the Bill is considered by the Senate Communications Committee and Parliament.
Regulations made under the legislation will also provide for an access regime to facilitate third party access to fibre-ready facilities.
The Bill also amends the industry codes and standards processes under Part 6 of the Telecommunications Act to make it easier for codes and standards to be made about optical fibre infrastructure and services where this is required.
Since April 2009, the Government's greenfields policy has been the subject of extensive consultation, including a discussion paper, input from a Stakeholder Reference Group, one-on-one consultations and release of an exposure draft Bill in December 2009.
The Government intends to refer this legislation to the Senate Environment, Communications and the Arts Committee immediately, so that it is able to be debated in the Budget sittings.
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