Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS (CARRIER LICENCE FEES) REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT) 1992 NO.227

Statutory Rules 1992 No. 227

Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Transport and Communications

TELECOMMUNICATIONS (CARRIER LICENCE FEES) ACT 1991

TELECOMMUNICATIONS (CARRIER LICENCE FEES) REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)

Section 8 of the Telecommunications (Carrier Licence Fees) Act 1991 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations for the purposes of the Act.

Section 4 of the Act provides for a fee to be payable by the holder of a general telecommunications licence or a public mobile licence. Paragraph 5(1)(b) of the Act provides that regulations may prescribe a procedure in accordance with which the amount of the fee is to be determined.

The Telecommunications (Carrier Licence Fees) Regulations (the Regulations) set out the procedure for determining each carrier licence fee, based on a fixed and variable component.

Under regulation 3 of the Regulations, the variable component of the fee is set by a formula which, in part, relies on the amount each carrier pays being determined by reference to their share of timed telecommunications traffic in the financial year preceding the financial year immediately before the 1 July on which the tax is to be paid.

A technical difficulty has emerged with the definition of ,timed traffic, in relation to the fee which will become payable on 1 July 1992. The variable component of the fee depends on timed traffic of the holder of a licence in the 1990/91 financial year. one of the licence holders, the Australian and Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (AOTC), did not exist during that financial year, and accordingly the variable component of the fee would not apply to it as it had no timed traffic at that time. Telecom and OTC Limited were providing timed traffic at that time and AOTC became their successor at law when they were subsequently merged.

The regulations solve the difficulty with the current definition of 'timed traffic' by omitting the current definition and substituting new definitions of 'particular carrier's timed traffic' and 'all carriers' 'timed traffic' which will take into account the timed traffic of Telecom and OTC during the relevant financial year.

Clauses 2.1 and 2.2 of regulation 2 make amendments to the regulations consequential upon the inclusion of the new definitions of 'particular carrier's timed traffic' and 'all carriers' 'timed traffic'.

Clause 2.3 of regulation 2 adds a new subregulation 2(2) which Includes the new definitions of 'particular carrier's timed traffic' and 'all carriers' 'timed traffic'.

Regulation 3 corrects a typographical error in paragraph 3(1)(a) of the Regulations.