2011 IPART Inquiry into Pricing of GRN Services

[ivahri]

That sounds about right... the agencies concerned don't care as it all comes out of the insurance industry.

Cheers,


Richard

[Scotty]

That sounds about right... the agencies concerned don't care as it all comes out of the insurance industry.

Cheers,

Richard

Not sure what you mean there Richard, I saw it in an earlier post as well. Do you mean there will be an added insurance levy? What would that apply to (like home/contents, vehicle, CTP)?

[ivahri]

When you take out home insurance there are things like fire levies... these are levied on the insurance industry by government to cover the cost of providing certain services. The cost of providing the GRN & radio in general is now being included in these levies. The government agencies get billed each month by the Telco agency (or its network manager), they pay the money, and have it (in essence) refunded by increased funding from insurance. Who pays? We do... and nobody even noticed that this happened just before the last state election. Thank Kristina, I'm sure Barry is!

Cheers,


Richard

[Scotty]

I had no idea, and like you said most people wouldn't. I can't even find any info on the OSR site.

To me it seems like a lot of paper shuffling for the Govt services to be charged a 'fee' when, as you say, this 'fee' doesn't come out of their budget but out of a pool of levies.

It would seem to make more sense for the Govt to foot the bill for all Govt users, get the appropriate levy from insurance themselves, and save money by not having to administer the bills across all the services.

[ivahri]

Speaking as a taxpayer I think the new system was one of the most dishonest ways of introducing a new tax on insurance without any public scrutiny. Why do I think they have done it? I think it is all about creating an income stream because without that the potential sale value of the network would be next to zero. Watch this space- I think the network & government radio subscriber business will be sold off sooner rather than later. When that happens the fur will fly (when they try to implement no competition clauses to prevent parallel PMR networks being used or set up).

The problem with your approach was that the state IS broke. There is no government money for radio because at least two major agencies are off doing their own thing. The other problem is that if you make network access free it will feed abuse of it. You will see traffic that doesn't belong on it move across, impacting on those users who depend on it. If users want a Rolls Royce network then they will have to pay for it, and most likely the likes of Airwave...

Cheers,

Richard

[Scotty]

Speaking as a taxpayer I think the new system was one of the most dishonest ways of introducing a new tax on insurance without any public scrutiny.

I think the tax you were referring to is the Emergency Services Levy, would that be correct? I can't find anything else that would be relevent. This levy was introduced to Parliment in 2008 as the "State Emegerncy Services Levy" and was renamed when it came into effect in 2009. It covers funding for both the SES and RFS.

The levy takes the a portion of the responsibility of funding for those two services away from local councils and transfers it to insurance premiums - which is a great idea. Nowadays both services offer state-wide coverage, and It has always been unfair that well-funded councils can provide their local SES/RFS units with all the best gear, while country/remote units with less well funded councils get the left overs. This levy reduces the need for local council contributions. The levy raises about $40 million a year.

Because local councils will be paying less for emergency services rates should lower, as this cost would have been covered by insurance premiums. So in essence the cost to the rate/tax-payer should not have changed. I doubt that would have been the case through.

Assuming this is the levy you mean, I can't see any specific mention of it being used to fund the GRN upgrades, however it is likely that funds from the levy allocated to the SES/RFS are being used. There is certainly no mention of it being used to fund the entire upgrade.

Is this the levy your referring to, or am I completely left field?

(PS: I personally think levies on insurance are a farce, because even if you don't have insurance the firies/ses/etc will still turn up and assist you in an emergency. Levies should be imposed on ALL through tax payments - not on some through insurance levies.)

[ivahri]

Scotty I'm not sure that is the levy I'm referring to. The changes to radio charges from about $40 a month to about $120 a month affects not just SES & RFS but FRNSW & NSWAS as well. This fee is now charged not just on radios using the GRN but every radio that each of these agencies have. Do the maths- the amount it must be collecting is massive.

Your last point is valid but already covered- it is called the Goods & Services Tax.

Cheers,

Richard

[centralcoastscanman]

wholy crap, that is a massive increase Richard... I can just imagine all the agencies that have disaster radios they only use once in a blue moon are going to be spewing...

[matthewn1983]

What about all the ones with several radios in one vehicle, and then include portables on top. All adds up.

[ivahri]

wholy crap, that is a massive increase Richard... I can just imagine all the agencies that have disaster radios they only use once in a blue moon are going to be spewing...

You are spot on there... a lot of radios installed in EOCs that might be used once or twice a year are now incurring that charge. But the DGs don't care because it isn't coming out of "their" budgets.