Metropolitan mayors have unanimously resolved that Councils in NSW should take immediate steps to begin charging pay TV cable carriers for their cable networks on public land. According to the NSW Local Government Association, while pay TV carriers have obtained temporary exemption from State and Local planning laws, they are obliged to pay Local Government charges.
Under section 611 of the Local Government Act, Councils in NSW can charge businesses when a benefit is obtained by the use of public space. For example, Councils can charge companies which have overhead walkways crossing public roads and can charge industries which have chemical pipelines crossing under public roads between facilities.
The meeting decided that each carrier should be taxed on the basis of the length of the cable network that it has in a local area and whether it is underground or overhead. For example, a carrier may have a network of 500 kilometres in a particular Council area. If the Council charges $400 per kilometre for all cable, and an additional $800 per kilometre for overheading, then the cost for the carrier will be $200,000 if all the cable goes underground or $600,000 if all the cable goes overhead.
“The effect of levying an additional tax for cables going overhead is to provide a major cost incentive to go underground,” said LGA President, Peter Woods. “It also provides a major incentive for carriers to co locate their facilities and share cables where feasible.
“We should be doing everything we can to encourage carriers to make decisions which are rational in the wider community sense, not decisions which serve narrow private interests. Hopefully, our decision will strengthen the resolve of federal politicians so that at last they exercise some leadership on this issue.”
