Saturday 21 April 2018
Miranda's IPA inspired rant
This was the News Corp mouthpiece for that far-right pressure group the Institute of Public
Affairs (IPA), Miranda Devine,
in full rant (though sticking closely to IPA's wish list) and under multiple mastheads on 18 April
2018:
Malcolm Turnbull has a
rare opportunity to put a stop to the Left’s long march when the Race
Discrimination Commissioner’s term expires in August
Race Discrimination
Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane’s term expires in August and the Turnbull
government cannot afford to miss this opportunity to stake out its ground in
the culture wars.
Conservatives are sick
of Coalition governments that appease the Left, curl into a ball and try not
to cause outrage while Labor-Green governments remake the culture in their own
image.
The country always takes
two steps to the Left with a Labor government and not much better than one step
to the Right or even staying in place with the Coalition, which puts us on a very
bad trajectory indeed…..
So government gets
bigger and more intrusive, the ABC continues unimpeded, destructive quangos
such as the Australian Human Rights Commission proliferate and the cancer of
identity politics takes hold. Little by little, our remarkable nation is
transformed, and division takes root. The self-reliance and entrepreneurial
spirit of Australians is sapped and the bonds of mateship are eroded.
But it doesn’t have to
be that way.
The only way to arrest
this dispiriting drift to the left is for Coalition governments to stop
pretending there are no culture wars and get into the trenches and fight.
With a one-seat
majority, a prime minister with fashionably progressive views and an election
in the next year, we can’t expect bold actions by the Turnbull government that
were beyond the Howard and Abbott governments. Such as closing down the Human
Rights Commission.
But Malcolm Turnbull
cannot afford to keep making mistakes like he did at the ABC when he appointed
as chairman a man who is such a leftie he said he couldn’t see any bias.
The symbolic value
cannot be over-estimated of replacing Soutphommasane with a commissioner who
doesn’t want to use race to divide us.
That’s all this pesky
36-year-old French-born son of Laotian refugees has done since he was appointed
to a five-year term by Kevin Rudd in 2013, a month before the Abbott government
was elected. Despite the fact Australia gave Soutphommasane’s family a home, a
free education at Hursltone Agricultural High and the University of Sydney, and
a Commonwealth scholarship to Oxford University, he preaches that this is a
racist country.
Despite the fact this is
the most successful immigrant country in the world, which has mostly
harmoniously absorbed as many as 200,000 new people each year from around the
world, Soutphommasane tells us that the culture is toxic.
The former freelance
journalist has bought the identity politics agenda, hook, line and sinker. He
saw the great honours bestowed on him, such as membership of the board of the
National Australia Day Council and the $340,000 gig at the Australian Human
Rights Commission, as proof, not that this was a country that offered equality
of opportunity to all comers, regardless of the colour of their skin. No, he
saw it as more evidence of anti-white racism that needed to be set straight
with social engineering.
He will never be
forgiven for soliciting racial complaints against a cartoon by the late and
much missed Bill Leak, whose persecution under Section 18C of the Racial
Discrimination Act only really ended with his untimely death last year of a
heart attack at 61.
Soutphommasane’s latest
obsession is to impose ethnic diversity quotas on corporate Australia. He
declared last year that there were too many white people running Australian
companies.
In his five years he has
just libelled Australia, created race-based social divisions and helped fuel a
backlash against immigration.
So it’s not good enough
for the government to appoint, as is mooted, an innocuous replacement who just
avoids the headlines. Restitution is needed. If we must have a racial
commissioner, then let it be a clear-eyed patriot who loves this country. Warren
Mundine is the best person for the job. Well-respected, brimming with common
sense and optimism, he has a proven track record as a businessman, and as an
Aboriginal and political leader. He would unite us around what’s best about
Australia.
This was a restrained Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane in rebuttal the following day:
Friday 20 April 2018
Turnbull Government will ignore this call to extend Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry at its own electoral peril
Remember When Australian Prime Minister and former merchant banker Malcolm Bligh Turnbull ruled out a bankig royal commission?
Telling the nation; "I can tell you wehave as a government decided not to have a royal commission, we made thedecision a long time ago, not because we don't believe there is nothing goingon in terms of problems with the banks, it is because we want to take actionright now and we are".
Recall the time and other limits placed on the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry when it was finally established on 14 December 2017? Giving it the power to ignore anything that it wanted to that would otherwise be within its scope.
Well things did not go entirely to plan for Malcolm and his banker mates.
Because since13 March 2018 the curtain has been drawn back revealing the systemic unethical, deceitful, rapacious, sometimes fraudulent and, in certain instances criminal behaviour, of the financial sector.
National Australia Bank, Westpac, St George, Citibank, ANZ, AMP Insurance and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, along with their financial services spin-offs, had all come under some degree of scrutiny by mid-April with more hearings still sheduled.
So it comes as no surprise that Fairfax Media is now saying what many are thinking.............
The Age, 18 November 2018:
Evidence to the
fledgling financial services royal commission confirms the inquiry, long-resisted
by the Coalition government and the banks, was justified and suggests it will
lead to rigorous reforms. It also suggests the government’s decision to limit
the probe to one year should be reviewed.
A damning admission by a
top executive of what was once one of the nation’s most trusted institutions,
AMP, about his company repeatedly lying to the corporate regulator about
condoned client fraud intensifies concerns about one of the most crucial
industries.
The Royal Commission
into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry
is only in its third week, but there has been a plethora of testimony to
unethical and/or illegal practices including: charging clients for wilfully
undelivered services; fraud; manipulating ‘‘independent’’ audit information;
selling clients irrelevant insurance and financial products (many of them
in-house); failing to declare commissions; refusing to honour insurance
contracts; rigging interest rate markets; and failing to make proper checks
before granting loans.
The banks long argued
the malfeasance was the result of ‘‘a few bad apples’’, a position that became
untenable as bountiful evidence, much of it revealed by The Age,
implicated the companies’ very culture.....
A measure of justice for an Australian tweeter
The win won’t
eradicate the sustained personal stress or financial difficulties that such an unfair
dismissal imposed – still it was pleasing see this tweeter's actions recognised as the right to freedom of political expression.
Hopefully Comcare will not be so bloody minded as to appeal the judgement,
The Sydney MorningHerald, 18 April
2018:
A former
Immigration official sacked over tweets critical of Australia's asylum seeker
policy has won a fight for compensation, after an appeals tribunal found her
dismissal was unlawful and described government efforts to restrict anonymous
comments from its employees as Orwellian.
The decision on Monday
will redirect scrutiny to the Immigration Department's dismissal of Michaela
Banerji for tweeting criticisms of detention policies, and challenges
Australian Public Service rules stopping public servants from expressing their
political views on social media.
Ms Banerji took the
government to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal after federal workplace
insurer Comcare refused to compensate her for the psychological condition that
developed after she was sacked in 2013 over tweets from a pseudonymous Twitter
account.
The tribunal overturned
Comcare's decision and found she suffered depression and anxiety that could be
classed an injury under federal compensation laws.
Ms Banerji was working
in the Immigration Department when co-workers learnt she was behind the tweets
railing against the government's treatment of asylum seekers.
She lost a
high-profile attempt to stop her dismissal in the Federal Circuit
Court in 2013, a decision seen as likely to curtail other bureaucrats' use of
social media when judge Warwick Neville found Australians had no
"unfettered implied right (or freedom) of political expression".
In a case that Ms
Banerji's lawyer Allan Anforth from Canberra Chambers said could have
implications for other public and private sector employees, the AAT said
Comcare's refusal was based on a dismissal that was unlawful because it
intruded on her right to free political expression.
Her tweets, made from the Twitter handle @LaLegale, were anonymous and did not
disclose confidential departmental information, but an internal investigation
in 2012 found she had breached the code of conduct for government employees.
In a submission to the
tribunal, Mr Anforth said the tweets were posted from her own phone and, in
most cases, outside work hours.
The appeals tribunal
found the Immigration Department itself had identified Ms Banerji after she
posted anonymously, and said guidelines stopping public servants from publicly
criticising the government should not be applied to anonymous comments.
"A comment made
anonymously cannot rationally be used to draw conclusions about the
professionalism or impartiality of the public service," it said.
"Such conclusions
might conceivably be open if the comments were explicitly attributed to, say,
an unnamed public servant, but that hypothetical situation does not apply to Ms
Banerji."
The tribunal found Ms
Banerji appeared to have taken care not to have used information which
could only have been in her possession as an Immigration employee.
It lashed the government
decision to sack her, saying it "impermissibly trespassed upon her implied
freedom of political communication", and "with a law only weakly and
imperfectly serving a legitimate public interest".
"The burden of the
code on Ms Banerji’s freedom was indeed heavy – the exercise of the freedom
cost her her employment.
"In our opinion,
there is no significant justification available to the employer here for the
law which exacted that cost."
Comcare is considering
the tribunal's decision. The findings could be appealed in the full Federal
Court…..
Labels:
free speech,
law,
political communication,
Twitter
Thursday 19 April 2018
None of the financial institutions are coming away from this Royal Commission covered in glory
The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry was established
on 14 December 2017, is due to hand down an interim report no later than 30
September 2018 followed by a final report by 1 February 2019.
As of 13 April 2018 the royal commission has received 3,433
public submissions - 69%
of these were Banking, 8% Superannuation 8% and 7% Financial Advice.
Round 2 public hearings finish on 27 April 2018.
Yesterday was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's turn to reluctantly admit systemic fraud ....
The Guardian, 18 April 2018:
Counsel assisting the
royal commission, Mark Costello, asked Linda Elkins, from CBA’s wealth
management arm Colonial First State, to confirm CBA’s poor record of charging fees
for no service.
“It would be the gold
medallist if [the corporate regulator] was handing out medals for fees for no
service, wouldn’t it?” Costello asked.
Elkins replied: “Yes.”
The commission was told
that from July 2007 to June 2015 clients of CBA’s Commonwealth Financial
Planning, BW Financial Planning and Count Financial businesses were routinely
charged ongoing fees for financial advice where no advice services were
provided.
CBA has had to refund
$118.5m to customers – more than half the $219m in compensation paid by the big
four banks and AMP over the past decade – to more than 310,000 financial advice
customers.
ABC News, 18 April 2018:
Michael Hodge QC
observes that Commonwealth Financial Planning has had a 100 per cent
increase in clients over the past decade but a 25 per cent drop in the number
of advisers.
He asks CBA's Marianne
Perkovic whether the bank had any concerns that clients were not receiving
adequate attention because of the decline in advisers, while client numbers
doubled.
This is in the context
of ASIC's concern that some firms were taking on too many clients for the
number of planners.
Ms Perkovic struggles to
provide a clear answer.......
After disputing the
meaning to be attributed to internal memos between the bank's senior managers
in early 2012, Ms Perkovic eventually had to admit that a Deloitte report
handed to CBA in July 2012 revealed systemic problems in ensuring that
customers weren't being charged for financial advice they did not receive.
Deloitte had found that
at least $700,000 in ongoing service fees were being charged to more than 1,050
clients that were allocated to more than 50 inactive financial planners
who had left the business before 2012.
It appears that Ms
Perkovic was finally ground down by relentless questioning from Michael Hodge
QC, warnings from Commissioner Kenneth Hayne and the irrefutable evidence of
the Deloitte report.
Labels:
banks and bankers,
corruption,
Finance,
royal commission
Institute of Public Affairs Limited (IPA) has a single broad focus - to infiltrate government in order to reduce workers to a powerless underclass
Given representatives of the Institute of Public Affairs Limited (IPA) turn up as guest commentators so frequently these days on television, radio and in newsprint - usually without mention of who they actually represent - perhaps it's time to update deatils of the corporate structure, finances and aims of this group.
The Institute of Public Affairs says of itself that it is: Australia's oldest and loudest free market think tank. Since 1943 the IPA has been at the forefront of public debate,promoting our values of freedom, free markets and individual liberty.
This highly partisan, conservative political pressure group thinly disguised as an independent research group-cum-think tank was registered in Melbourne Victoria in
1987 and its legal owner appears to be The Trustee For Institute Of Public Affairs Research Trust. This trust was created on 10 July 2007.
In the 1990s it appears to have merged with the the Australian Institute of Public Policy.
In the 1990s it appears to have merged with the the Australian Institute of Public Policy.
IPA became a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR)
from 30 Mar 2006, though it is hard to make out on exactly what factual grounds it became an Approved Research Institute (ARI) with charitable status.
It guards its individual and corporate membership list closely, but does admit to 4,559 members as of 1 July 2016.
IPA's founding members as then captains of industry, wealthy graziers and conservative politicians (Charles Denton Kemp, Sir
Robert Gordon Menzies, B A
Santamaria, Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch, Sir George James Coles, Harold Gordon Darling, G.H. Grimwade, H.R. Harper, W.A. Ince, Fredrick Earnest Lampe MBE,
Sir Walter Massy-Greene, Sir Leslie James McConnan, C.N. McKay, William Edward McPherson, Sir Ian
Potter and The Hon. A.G. Warner) are reasonably well-known, as are a handful of current members.
A significant number of IPA supporters are easily identified because this pressure group published the names of around 1,261 of its supporters in 2011.
Its board and company directors are now known due to the fact that it has finally published annual reports from 2000-01 to 2016-17.
IPA states that: 86 per cent of the IPA's revenue is donated by individuals, 12 per cent is received from foundations, 1 per cent from businesses, and 1 per cent from other sources such as interest. The IPA neither seeks nor receives any funding from government. In addition to the membership fees contributed by IPA members, the IPA received 2,913 separate donations during 2016-17.
It also supplies this graph of modest through to rather generous individual and corporate donations in its 2016-17 Annual Report:
The Institute of Public Affairs updated its policy aims in 2012 as it geared up to fight against Australian Labor Party and Greens policies during the 2013 federal election campaign:
Over the years a number of
members of the IPA (past & present) have also been members of the Liberal Party (or worked for Liberal politicians), including David Kemp, Rod
Kemp, John Hyde, John Roskam, Tim
Wilson, James Patterson, Mitch Fifield, Nicholle Flint, Allan Pidgeon, Mike Nahan, Michael Kroger, Tom Switzer, Andrew Shearer, Richard Allsop, Simon Breheny, Ross Maclean, Peta Credlin and Tony Smith.
A significant number of IPA supporters are easily identified because this pressure group published the names of around 1,261 of its supporters in 2011.
Its board and company directors are now known due to the fact that it has finally published annual reports from 2000-01 to 2016-17.
IPA states that: 86 per cent of the IPA's revenue is donated by individuals, 12 per cent is received from foundations, 1 per cent from businesses, and 1 per cent from other sources such as interest. The IPA neither seeks nor receives any funding from government. In addition to the membership fees contributed by IPA members, the IPA received 2,913 separate donations during 2016-17.
It also supplies this graph of modest through to rather generous individual and corporate donations in its 2016-17 Annual Report:
The Institute of Public Affairs updated its policy aims in 2012 as it geared up to fight against Australian Labor Party and Greens policies during the 2013 federal election campaign:
1 Repeal the carbon tax,
and don’t replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the
carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by
another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.
2 Abolish
the Department of Climate Change
3 Abolish the
Clean Energy Fund
4 Repeal
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act
5 Abandon
Australia’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security
Council
6 Repeal
the renewable energy target
7 Return
income taxing powers to the states
8 Abolish
the Commonwealth Grants Commission
9 Abolish the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
10 Withdraw
from the Kyoto Protocol
11 Introduce fee
competition to Australian universities
12 Repeal the
National Curriculum
13 Introduce
competing private secondary school curriculums
14 Abolish the
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
15 Eliminate laws that
require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’
16 Abolish television
spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common
law
17 End local
content requirements for Australian television stations
18 Eliminate
family tax benefits
19 Abandon the paid
parental leave scheme
20 Means-test Medicare
21 End all corporate
welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of
Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education
22 Introduce
voluntary voting
23 End mandatory
disclosures on political donations
24 End media blackout in
final days of election campaigns
25 End public
funding to political parties
26 Remove
anti-dumping laws
27 Eliminate
media ownership restrictions
28 Abolish the
Foreign Investment Review Board
29 Eliminate
the National Preventative Health Agency
30 Cease
subsidising the car industry
31 Formalise a
one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction
32 Rule out federal
funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games
33 Deregulate
the parallel importation of books
34 End preferences for
Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws
35 Legislate a cap
on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP
36 Legislate a balanced
budget amendment which strictly limits the size of
budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in
deficit
37 Force government
agencies to put all of their spending online in a
searchable database
38 Repeal plain
packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products,
including alcohol and fast food
39 Reintroduce
voluntary student unionism at universities
40 Introduce a voucher
scheme for secondary schools
41 Repeal the alcopops
tax
42 Introduce a special
economic zone in the north of Australia including:
a) Lower personal income tax for residents
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
c) Encourage the construction of dams
a) Lower personal income tax for residents
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
c) Encourage the construction of dams
43 Repeal the mining tax
44 Devolve environmental
approvals for major projects to the states
45 Introduce a single
rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold
46 Cut company tax to an
internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent
47 Cease funding the
Australia Network
48 Privatise Australia
Post
49 Privatise Medibank
50 Break up the ABC and
put out to tender each individual function
51 Privatise SBS
52 Reduce the size of
the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the
2001 low of 212,784
53 Repeal the Fair
Work Act
54 Allow individuals and
employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them
55 Encourage independent
contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors
56 Abolish the Baby
Bonus
57 Abolish the First
Home Owners’ Grant
58 Allow the Northern
Territory to become a state
59 Halve the size of the
Coalition front bench from 32 to 16
60 Remove all remaining
tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade
61 Slash top public
servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United
States
62 End all public
subsidies to sport and the arts
63 Privatise the
Australian Institute of Sport
64 End all hidden
protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in
government tendering
65 Abolish the Office
for Film and Literature Classification
66 Rule out any
government-supported or mandated internet censorship
67 Means test tertiary
student loans
68 Allow people to opt
out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income
support in retirement
69 Immediately halt
construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that
have already been built
70 End all government
funded Nanny State advertising
71 Reject proposals for
compulsory food and alcohol labelling
72 Privatise the CSIRO
73 Defund Harmony Day
74 Close the Office for
Youth
75 Privatise the
Snowy-Hydro Scheme
By 2014 a few
more policies made it on to the IPA list according to The AIM Network:
* “Immediately
halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections
that have already been built”
* “Rule out the
introduction of mandatory pre-commitment for electronic gaming machines”
* “Extend the GST to
cover all goods and services”
and
* “Negotiate and sign
free trade agreements with Australia’s largest trading partners, including
China, India, Japan and South Korea”.
Liberal Party prime ministers have been working their way through IPA's policy agenda since such lists were first created.
Federal Government regulation now means there is some degree of transparency with regard to IPA finances, which like the finances of other 'charities" are subject to disclosure.
Annual Information Statement declared by The Trustee For Institute Of Public Affairs Research Trust (Charity ABN 33886902896), October 2017, excerpt:
Annual Information Statement declared by The Trustee For Institute Of Public Affairs Research Trust (Charity ABN 33886902896), October 2017, excerpt:
Labels:
lobbyists,
right wing rat bags
Wednesday 18 April 2018
Australian Minister for Communications and longstanding member of the far-right pressure group the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is up in arms because Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman tells some home truths
On Tuesday 17 April the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman (TIO) sent out the media
release in this post.
That same day the Australian Minister for
Communications and longstanding member of the far-right pressure group the Institute
of Public Affairs (IPA), Liberal Senator
for Victoria Mitch Fifield, came out fighting after the TIO report showed: complaints
about services delivered over the NBN surged by 204% in the second half of
2017, compared with the same period a year earlier…. Fifield said the way the
information regarding the 22,827 complaints about services delivered over the
NBN was presented in the TIO report, released Tuesday, “could give the
impression that responsibility for this figure rests with NBN Co”.
It looks suspiciously like the Minister is now approaching a scheduled review of telecommunications consumer protections and the complaints process with a view to quash an inconvenient truth – that transfers to the version of the National
Broadband Network (NBN) cobbled together by Tony Abbott and MalcolmTurnbull are a dismal failure for far too many Australian businesses and households.
Telecommunication
Industry Ombudsman (TIO), media
release, 17 April 2018:
Report highlights
increase in complaints about landline, mobile and internet services
Australian residential
consumers and small businesses made 84,914 complaints to the Telecommunications
Industry Ombudsman in the last six months of 2017 (1 July 2017 to 31 December
2017). In this period, complaints about landline, mobile and internet services,
increased by 28.7 per cent compared to the same six month period in 2016.
Publishing the
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s Six Monthly Update today (Tuesday 17
April, 2018), Ombudsman Judi Jones said “The telecommunications industry in
Australia continues to experience significant change. An increasing range of
products and services are being offered to consumers, expectations for the
quality of phone and internet services are high, and the rollout of the
National Broadband Network is changing the way we use telecommunications
services.
“However, consumers
still seem to be facing the same problems, particularly with their bills and
the customer service they receive. Confidence in services being updated or
transferred reliably, faulty equipment, and poor service quality were also
recorded as key issues. Additionally, the wider issues relating to phone or
internet problems such as debt management are concerning.”
Jones added, “Complaints
about services delivered over the National Broadband Network continued to
increase compared to the same six month period in 2016. This indicates the
consumer experience is still not meeting expectations for all. Recent changes
to regulation and an increase in our powers to resolve complaints are positive
steps that will help improve the consumer experience.”
Highlights for the
period 1 July 2017 to 31 December 2017 include:
* 84,914 total
complaints were received
* 74,729 complaints (88
per cent) were from residential consumers
* 9,947 complaints (11.7
per cent) were from small businesses
Landline, mobile,
internet, multiple services and property
Complaints for the
period increased 28.7 per cent compared to the same six month period in 2016.
* 9,447 complaints (11.1
per cent) were recorded about landline phone services
* 24,923 complaints
(29.4 per cent) were recorded about mobile phone services
* 23,785 complaints (28
per cent) were recorded about internet services
* 26,112 complaints
(30.8 per cent) were recorded about multiple services*
* 647 complaints (0.8
per cent) were recorded about property*
* Charges and fees,
unsatisfactory response from the provider (provider response), and poor service
quality were the most common issues.
Small Businesses
Between 1 July and 31
December 2017 complaints from small businesses increased 15.6 per cent to 9,947
compared to the same period in 2016.
* Complaints from Small
Businesses accounted for 11.7 per cent of total complaints for the period
* 2,178 complaints (21.9
per cent) were recorded about landline phone services
* 2,074 complaints (20.9
per cent) were recorded about mobile phone services
* 1,716 complaints (17.3
per cent) were recorded about internet services
* 3,937 complaints (39.6
per cent) were recorded about multiple services*
* 42 complaints (0.4 per
cent) were recorded about property
* The
main issues affecting small businesses were charges and fees, unsatisfactory
response from the provider (provider response), and no service.
Complaints by State
All states and territories
in Australia saw a growth in complaints in the last six months of 2017 compared
to the same period in 2016.
Queensland recorded the
highest growth in complaints, an increase of 39.3 per cent, followed by Western
Australia with 36.5 per cent.
Complaints by state (in
alphabetical order) are as follows:
* Australian Capital
Territory made 1,184 complaints, an increase of 11 per cent
* New South Wales made
26,914 complaints, an increase of 27.9 per cent
* Northern Territory
made 504 complaints, an increase of 20 per cent
* Queensland made 16,418
complaints, an increase of 39.3 per cent
* South Australia made
6,552 complaints, an increase of 22.7 per cent
* Tasmania made 1,614
complaints, an increase of 33.1 per cent
* Victoria made 23,954
complaints, an increase of 30.5 per cent
* Western Australia made
7,381 complaints, an increase of 36.5 per cent
* The main issues
affecting Australian states and territories were charges and fees,
unsatisfactory response from the provider (provider response), and poor service
quality
Services delivered over
the National Broadband Network
Complaints about
services delivered over the National Broadband Network increased 203.9 per cent
to 22,827 on the same period in 2016.
* 14,055 complaints were
recorded about service quality
* 8,757 complaints were
recorded about delays in establishing a connection
* The
main issues affecting residential consumers and small businesses were
unsatisfactory response from the provider (provider response), poor service
quality, and connecting a service (connection/changing provider)
NOTES TO EDITORS
*From 1 July 2017, the
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman changed the recording of complaints.
There are now five complaint service categories: landline phone services,
mobile phone services, internet services, multiple services (where the consumer
is complaining about more than one phone or internet issue), or a complaint
about damage or access to property. The changes mean data will more accurately
reflect the description of complaints given by residential consumers and small
businesses. The changes also make it easier to see the issues facing
the telecommunication industry, helping providers improve the delivery of phone
and internet services. Trend analysis will build over time from the start of
this reporting period.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)