The Federal Parliament committee examining IT price hikes in Australia has published an extensive report recommending a raft of drastic measures to deal with current practices in the area, which, the report says, are seeing Australians unfairly slugged with price increases of up to 50 percent on key technology goods and services.
In mid-2012, spurred by the campaigning efforts of then-Labor backbencher Ed Husic, who has since been promoted to the dual roles of Parliamentary Secretary for Broadband and Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications kicked off hearings into the Australian cost of popular technology goods and services, as well as some forms of content, with reference to the issue of unfair price increases by international vendors.
Late last week, the committee handed down its report on the issue to Parliament, and this morning it was made available in full on the committee’s website.
In the foreword to the report, Committee chair Nick Champion noted that the importance of IT products to every sector of Australian society can hardly be overstated
. IT products are woven into the fabric of our economy and society, and have driven rapid change in the way Australians communicate, the way we work, and the way we live,
the Labor MP noted.
However, Champion added, the committee hearings held over the past year had found that Australian consumers and businesses must often pay between 50 and 100 percent more than those residing in other countries for the same products — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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