The Senate has referred the above matter to the Committee
for inquiry and report on the 16 June 2004.
The terms of reference are:
(a) the capacity of the Australian telecommunications network, including
the public switched telephone network, to deliver adequate services to
all Australians, particularly in rural and regional areas;
(b) the capacity of the Australian telecommunications network, including
the public switched telephone network, to provide all Australians with
reasonable, comparable and equitable access to broadband services;
(c) current investment patterns and future investment requirements to
achieve adequacy of services in the Australian telecommunications network;
(d) regulatory or other measures which might be required to bring the
Australian telecommunications network up to an adequate level to ensure
that all Australians may obtain access to adequate telecommunications
services; and
(e) any other matters, including international comparisons, which are
deemed relevant to these issues by the Committee.
The Committee invites written submissions from interested
individuals and organisations to be lodged by Friday 16 August 2002.
The Committee prefers submissions to be lodged in electronic form, sent
by email to ecita.sen@aph.gov.au. The email must
include full postal address and contact details. Alternatively, submissions
may be sent to the Secretary, Senate ECITA References Committee, Parliament
House, Canberra ACT 2600.
Advice on preparing a submission is available on the Committee's web
site or by contacting the Secretariat as follows: phone (02) 6277 3526;
fax (02) 6277 5818. The web site address is www.aph.gov.au/senate_environment.