Comment re Radiocommunications Bill 2017

[VK4ADC]

Roger Harrison VK2ZRH from the Spectrum Strategy Committee.

 There are no amateurs alive today who witnessed the making of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1912, which introduced licensing for those who wished to use the spectrum for communications over a distance without wires connecting them.

 However, there are many amateurs on-air today who, having obtained a licence under that 1912 Act – yours truly included – witnessed the making of the Radiocommunications Act 1992, which introduced three new concepts in licensing, Spectrum licensing, Class licensing and Apparatus licensing. 

 Now – in 2017 – EVERY licensed radio amateur, clutching that hard-won Apparatus licence – is able to witness the making of a new radiocommunications act, which will introduce a single licensing system – parameters-based licensing.

 There is an old saying generally attributed to the 19th century Chancellor of Germany, Otto von Bismarck, which goes QUOTE . . . to retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making . . . END QUOTE.
 For almost two decades, my day job as a public servant has involved watching laws “in the making”. Up close and personal. 

 I had never thought about it in terms of my diet, until now, but these days I rarely eat sausages. 

 In a past career as a journalist editing a manufacturing industry publication, I once went on a tour of a meat processing factory. Yep. Among other things, making sausages. My interest was in the production technology, not the product. 

 Reflecting on it now, perhaps Bismarck was right. Or whoever made the original observation.

 The Radiocommunications Bill 2017 – the draft legislation for public comment, was published in late May on the eve of the WIA AGM in Hahndorf, South Australia, a location famed for its wine . . . food . . and gourmet sausages. 
 The WIA’s Spectrum Strategy Committee members wasted no time in downloading the exposure draft of the Bill and the 20 related papers setting out details on key aspects of the Bill. 

 Discussions that ensued between committee members drew out the many key points and issues that would need to be addressed in the WIA’s response. 

 The structure of the response was devised by the WIA’s Regulatory Counsel, Peter Young VK3MV, now retired after more than 20 years with the ACMA. 

 With more than 20 parts and running to over 200 pages, a comprehensive response to the Bill was never going to be covered by a short, sharp series of dot-points. Guided by Peter’s wise counsel, the WIA’s submission had many authors and editors. It was shaped by consideration of the audience it had to reach – senior officers in the Department of Communications and the Arts who would likely have little or no knowledge of the Amateur Service, or amateur radio as a hobby, let alone the WIA or its history dating back to the time before the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1912. 

 Content for use in the submission was drawn from a wide array of sources, including material used in past submissions to the government’s spectrum review program since it was launched in 2014. This material was reviewed, revised and rewritten as necessary, or discarded for new material written ‘from scratch’.
 
The process for developing and producing the WIA’s submission is very similar to that involved in my day job. A team of producers, reviewers and editors, devise, review and revise a document until agreement is reached. There’s nothing cursory about it. That’s how the professionals do it.

 It works for them. It works for the WIA.

 I shall end with a quote from a textbook on the workings of government.
 With reference to the laws, a knowledge of how they are made may increase our respect for them and their makers; and if it does not, we are at least able to express our dissatisfaction in an intelligent manner.

 This is Roger Harrison VK2ZRH for VK1WIA News.

(From WIA News for 20 August 2017)