Edward Savage

This Forum is about "Setting the right regulatory framework", ..................and what a disaster that has been upto now. For any digital Economy to grow it needs to be taken care of, and not poisoned by an overly burgeonsome regulatory environment, we can see what happens as the result of that in Telecommunications, Regulation, where we are constantly debating on how the same cake needs to be cutup. (again & again) If regulation in Australia becomes to tight companies will move offshore, yet if they are too lose 'digital crimes' will increase, the problem is that there is no consistancy Internationally speaking. For example: What is a legal digital business overseas, may not be legal here, Spain may allow the peer to peer file sharing, of a current release Disney Movie' provided no money (gratitudes) are exchanged and what is shared is for private use only, yet here that activity would infrindge several Australian Laws. So more to the point where on the Digital Economy line, does the Government want us to be ? Unless there is consistancy across International Boundries, then we will host content here that may be objectionable in say a Middle East, and their IP Filtering will block it, just the same as ours does. (Digital Protectionism) Then there is the whole question of Digital Tarifs and Digital Taxes, why would I open a business here that would make Millions of Dollars and pay thousands in Taxes, when I can open the same business in Monaco and pay none. ? But turing to a more constructive approach, the first step is to allow real competition in the physical access area, not just a re-cutting of the same old cake, a new set of rules on how many pieces of cake a player can have, etc. I haven't been following this NBN debate closely, but if the result is simply another hybrid of the same network, it is simply a waste of time, what is needed is a completely seperate network, perhaps "Broadband Of The Power Lines" or a combination of technologies to deliver real broadband competition. A entirely new seperate Fibre Network to the Home, would be the best option, and then start to dismantle some of the current Regulation, and let Market Forces take contol. At present all this particular regulation does, is make one party rich, at another parties expense, discourages competition, by "declaring" whatever is ploughed into the ground as available to all and sundry, what incentive is there to develop anything in Australia if this is an example of how they do business. ? For me to develop a Digital Business here, I would want to make damm sure that my product and services is not simply declared in the national interest, and given away at a price that is determined by a well meaning outsider (like the ACCC.) The real question should be what "Regulatory Incentives" can the Australia Government offer "Digital Ecomony" based Companies to operate in Australia, a start might be to declare them a Customs TRADE FREE ZONE, thus making their development costs a lot lower than they currently are. Lets face it I can simply move my digital business onto a File-Server off shore if things become to overly regulated here.