Commonwealth Numbered Acts

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT 1991 No. 98 of 1991 - SECT 173

173. It is the Parliament's intention:

   (a)  that the carriers, as the primary providers of Australia's public
        telecommunications infrastructure and networks, and the principal
        suppliers of telecommunications services in Australia, should be able
        to exploit fully, in their supply of basic carriage services, the
        economies of scale and scope available to them because of the
        facilities they control; and

   (b)  that the use of telecommunications services supplied by carriers to
        other persons (including use for or in relation to the supply of
        telecommunications services by those persons) should be free of
        restrictions other than those that AUSTEL imposes under Part 10 by
        including conditions in class licences; and

   (c)  that, in relation to the supply of higher level services, there should
        be competition, on an equitable basis, among suppliers of such
        services (whether carriers or other persons); and

   (d)  that, in order to promote competition in markets for
        telecommunications services, in a way that is orderly and consistent
        with the declaration in paragraph (a), AUSTEL should be empowered to
        require a carrier to unbundle basic carriage services progressively;
        and

   (e)  that, in order to promote competition, and to reduce
        information-gathering costs to consumers of
        telecommunications services, the carriers should be required to
        prepare tariffs of the basic carriage services they supply; and

   (f)  that a carrier that is in a position to dominate a market for
        telecommunications services should not abuse its market power by
        discriminating between persons who acquire such services in that
        market; and

   (g)  that, in view of the declaration in paragraph (b), a carrier should
        not, in its supply of telecommunications services in a market,
        discriminate between resellers who acquire such services in that
        market and other persons who so acquire such services.