ACCC holds public inquiry in Hobart on Telstra price controls

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will hold a public hearing in Hobart as part of its national inquiry to determine whether there is a need for retail price control arrangements to continue to apply to Telstra after 30 June 2001.

The hearing will be held at the Mawson Room, Hobart Function and Convention Centre, Elizabeth Street Pier, on Monday 20 November and will commence at 5 pm.

The ACCC has been directed to conduct a review by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. The terms of reference require the ACCC to hold a public inquiry into whether there is a need for price control arrangements on Telstra to continue after the current arrangements expire on 30 June 2001. Should the ACCC consider there is still a need for price control arrangements, the public inquiry should also determine what form they should take, including their duration, means of implementation and mechanisms for their review.

Some of the controls relevant to this review include the price cap on a broad basket of services (including long distance calls, local calls and line rentals); the 22 cent (GST inclusive) price cap on local calls and the local call parity requirement, which ensures that residential, charity and business customers in non-metropolitan areas pay broadly the same for untimed local calls as those in metropolitan areas.

The requirement for Telstra to provide untimed local calls is found in Part 4 of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act and this is not included in the review.

As part of the review the ACCC issued a Discussion Paper in late September, and received submissions at the end of October.

"The series of hearings throughout Australia are the next stage in the public inquiry process, and are designed to provide a forum for the public, industry participants and consumer groups to discuss whether the retail pricing controls should continue to apply to Telstra and in what form", Mr John Martin, the ACCC Commissioner conducting the public hearings, said today.

A discussion of the relevant issues, as well as the terms of reference for the review, can be found in the Discussion Paper. Interested parties can download the Discussion Paper from the ACCC's website.

A draft report on the pricing review will be issued by the ACCC in December 2000. Interested parties will then be provided an opportunity to make comments on the draft report by mid-January 2001. The ACCC expects to finalise its review of the price control arrangements by late January 2001.

Hearing dates and locations