{"id":570,"date":"2018-11-16T04:58:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T04:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=570"},"modified":"2018-11-16T04:58:30","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T04:58:30","slug":"morrison-government-puts-telco-consumers-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/11\/16\/morrison-government-puts-telco-consumers-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Morrison Government puts telco consumers first"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Morrison Government has today announced 32 recommendations to further protect telco consumers.<br \/>\nThe recommendations are contained in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.communications.gov.au\/have-your-say\/consumer-safeguards-review-consultation-part-consumer-redress-and-complaints-handling\">Part A of the Consumer Safeguards Review<\/a>\u00a0which include strengthening the Australia\u2019s Telecommunications Ombudsman. The findings also look to improve the handling of customer complaints and increase the transparency of complaints data to drive the telco industry toward improved customer service.<br \/>\nThe three part review, announced in April 2018 examines how to better protect telco customers in a landscape that has seen massive change over the last two decades. Twenty years ago, approximately 35 per cent of Australian homes had a broadband connection. By 2020, 100 per cent of homes will be able to connect through the NBN.<br \/>\nMinister for Communications Mitch Fifield said the Morrison Government was putting consumers first.<br \/>\n\u201cThe consumer safeguards we have in place today are designed around the old telephone network. The ongoing relevance and usefulness of these protections is diminishing as Australia\u2019s telecommunications environment and consumer use evolves\u201d he said.<br \/>\nToday\u2019s Part A Recommendations: Consumer Redress and Complaints Handling will strengthen the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) by improving its governance, operations and relationship with the telco regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).<br \/>\nThe consultation paper for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.communications.gov.au\/have-your-say\/consumer-safeguards-review-consultation-part-b-reliability-services\">Part B: Reliability of Telecommunications Services<\/a>\u00a0was also released today and submissions are due by 21 December 2018. Part B of the Review is based on the fundamental principle that all Australians should be able to connect to, and stay connected to, a reliable fixed service.<br \/>\n\u201cBroadband is now considered as essential as electricity or water. Consumers expect to get connected and stay connected, and if something goes wrong, it needs to be fixed and fixed quickly\u201d.<br \/>\nPart C of the consumer safeguards review will look at choice and fairness in the retail relationship between the customer and their provider. The consultation paper will be released in early 2019.<br \/>\nThe full report and recommendations from Part A (redress and complaints handling), and the Part B discussion paper (service reliability) are available at:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.communications.gov.au\/consumer-safeguards-review\">www.communications.gov.au\/consumer-safeguards-review<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Morrison Government has today announced 32 recommendations to further protect telco consumers. The recommendations are contained in\u00a0Part A of the Consumer Safeguards Review\u00a0which include strengthening the Australia\u2019s Telecommunications Ombudsman. The findings also look to improve the handling of customer complaints and increase the transparency of complaints data to drive the telco industry toward improved &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/11\/16\/morrison-government-puts-telco-consumers-first\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Morrison Government puts telco consumers first&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}