Metadata retention to cost AU$3.98 a year per customer

The customers pays more for a draconian government intrusion into their affairs. It's a win-win.

Pure hypocrisy - regulatory burden

So $1bn of regulatory burden across all sectors is significant in terms of "strangling Australia‟s economic prosperity and development."

http://www.liberal.org.au/boosting-productivity-and-reducing-regulation

While hitting one sector with $400m (40% of that total) of burden is insignificant, can't wait to see the regulatory impact statement:

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/cost-of-metadata-laws-will-be-400-million-cost-of-inaction-incalculable-tony-abbott-20150218-13hv10.html

Re: Only keeping what they already keep

@AC

With the disclaimer that I am far from a supporter of this legislation, I need to correct you here because it's important that we focus on what the issues are.

The fact that there is extra cost is consistent with what Brandis et al have claimed, which is that no different types of data will be collected, just that those things currently collected will be stored for a longer period.

It is reasonable to expect that this will incur extra costs, most obviously in storage but likely also in providing the extra indexing and searching capabilities that such a vastly increased data set depth will require.

Think more rows in the table, not more columns.

Of course, that is simply what Brandis is telling us - I am making no assertions that he is actually telling the truth, just that the extra cost is consistent with his claims.

Re: Only keeping what they already keep

"Brandis and co keep telling us that the new law dictates that telcos/ISPs need only to retain the data they are already keeping for internal purposes."

They do keep bring that up. I do wonder if George and Malcolm know the difference between storing 1 number (bytes used), and storing the names, addresses, bytes used, time it started and stopped, etc.

Something tells me these clowns last looked at a phone bill about 20 years ago.

Re: We know who will pick up the rest of the costs

@AC

To be fair, some public servants are very good at their job and very thorough. These, however, are generally among the non-party-affiliated groups like the Treasury.

Sure, the Treasury is not completely independent as it is at the direction of the government of the day but it's work and costings and reviews are independent and should be considered accurate within the scope.

Of course, the problem is that the government is under no obligation to accept the results and what tends to happen is that those findings and costings that support whatever the government wants to do are released are championed while those that tell the government something they don't want to hear are ignored. Perhaps another report is commissioned with a different (usually reduced) scope to try and get something that better aligns with their claims.

So there are public servants who are thorough and honest but they tend to be ignored by the government unless, miraculously, the government claims actually accord with reality.