Radiocommunications Amendment Bill

48. On 27 May 1996 Cabinet agreed⁵⁹ to Ministry of Commerce proposals for a Radiocommunications Amendment Bill. The Bill would:

1. Remove the 20 year restriction on the duration of management rights.
2. Adopt changes to improve the technical definition of rights including
   1. Flexibility in the spectrum licence format to permit wider technology and service choices
   2. Revised requirements for licence engineering and certification
   3. Provide for amend, cancel and transfer authorities in a licence
   4. Combine into a single publicly accessible register, records of administrative licences and spectrum rights
3. Allow a succeeding management right to be created prior to the expiry of an existing right in order to facilitate its transfer at expiry.
4. Provide a new procedure for interference resolution based on compulsory adjudication.
5. Make the obligation on rightholders to comply with the international radio regulations more specific.
6. Transfer the provisions relating to privacy of radiocommunications from regulations to the Act and make them subject to an offence.
7. Adopt changes dealing with administrative licensing, including the capacity to licence the use of frequencies rather than apparatus.
8. Repeal spent provisions.

The Bill was duly drafted and approved for introduction by Cabinet on 8 December 1997⁶⁰.

Footnotes

⁵⁹ CAB(96) M 19/19A refers.

⁶⁰ CAB (97) M 46/11H refers.