Dr. T.J. McIntyre:

I thank Senator Hoey. I agree with the point I think she is making, which is that we are not going about this the right way in the current format, partly for the reasons I outlined to Senator Byrne. If I may elaborate and give the committee just one concrete example of why this is, the Bill proposes to place obligations on the providers of private communications services by way of a media code to be adopted by the new commission. In doing so, however, it seems to be completely unaware of the provisions of European law, the privacy directive and the new European electronic communications code, which would preclude the Bill from doing that. Therefore, what is proposed, as it stands, simply could not be done. I looked through the entire heads of the Bill and the regulatory impact analysis to see whether these pieces of legislation are mentioned but I could not find them mentioned anywhere. It might be that there is another policy document I am not aware of that does so, but it seems to me the Bill reflects very much the broadcasting mindedness of its originator. It reflects the priorities of a Department used to regulating a small number of large entities with relatively little freedom of expression litigation brought against it. I can think of only one case of any great significance in this context in recent years. This approach tends to fall down when applied to a much wider range of entities which also deal with private speech, which involves a much wider range of public individuals, rather than a small number of broadcasters and so on. Again, I think the model we are looking at here is perhaps not the appropriate one.