It is not the ACCC's role to spruik government telco policy

Senator the Hon Nick Minchin
Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (to 8 December 2009)
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate

Graham Samuel’s continued spruiking of the Rudd Government’s NBN proposal and its planned telecommunications regulatory reforms threatens to undermine the ACCC’s role as an objective regulator Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Nick Minchin said today.

Mr Samuel last night did an extended interview on ABC’s Lateline Business program extolling the virtues of the NBN and pushing the case for Telstra’s structural separation.

Senator Minchin said the ACCC’s job as an “independent statutory authority” was to objectively regulate the telecommunications sector, not actively and publicly promote Government policy.

“Mr Samuel quite frankly has overstepped his role and responsibility by publicly promoting the Government’s NBN policy and also its plans to force the structural separation of Telstra.

“The Government’s regulatory reform legislation is the subject of a Senate inquiry and will soon be debated and considered by the Parliament and in that context it is inappropriate for the regulator to be so actively promoting its passage.

“Mr Samuel’s continued public commentary runs the risk of providing evidence

of bias against a company he is entrusted to regulate and reducing public confidence in the ACCC as an impartial competition regulator,” Senator Minchin said.

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