ACMA & The Class Licensing Proposal

The ACMA sent out a proposal to move Amateur Radio to a "class licensing" system.

The documentation is here

Peter Parker VK3YE has made a couple of great videos:

 

There has been a whole lot of discussion on this subject with a whole lot of potential conjecture about what the real intent of the ACMA is and some risks of us accepting the class licensing system.

It seems there is concern that the "fee free" offer is bait to attract us towards a cheaper for us system, but at the cost of protecting us in regards to interference - not that it seems that they've ever done a whole lot about this anyway. If we're interfered with, they don't seem terribly concerned. If we cause it, well, we're the ones stuck dealing with it anyway. 

Reading between the lines; especially given the other options and some history where ACMA seem to have been unimpressed with groups such as WIA and their ability to be a cohesive organisation that lead to AMC taking over examination and callsign allocation. 

One might imagine after AMC's struggles of 2020 that they might be second guessing the value of their involvement. They weren't ready for changes thrown at them by ACMA, and it did prove that they're an additional layer of abstraction between the AR community and its goals. 

If ACMA sees the WIA vs RASA rift within the community and the polarisation that is clearly evident, that potentially damages either organisations reputation from their perspective. Coupled with the noise created during 2020, that might give them a bias towards a simplification of the process: reduce the amount of red tape that an organisation with the deed (ie AMC) has to do (it's a cost recovery only, so they may not too concerned) and reduce the quality of service to the community to reduce the costs to them. 

ACMA also sees AR has a hobby. The ITU sees AR as a service. This is an interesting distinction; especially when you look at where various AR groups around the country are asked for assistance - I'm aware during the Victoria - SA border lock downs, the Mt Gambier group were asked to assist with communications because the government departments lacked the capabilities to manage communications whilst in the middle of a pine plantation.  Various groups appear to get called in during natural disasters to aide in communications - the reliance on repeaters by emergency services does have a fundamental weakness when the repeater is on fire. Referring to AR as a "hobby" seems to be quite demeaning. The amount of knowledge and expertise required to achieve the level of "advanced" is far beyond the technical capabilities of many people. There are "professionals" who have far less skills and knowledge in their fields, yet hams are relegated to being "hobbyists".

One even wonders whether all the feedback in the world will actually matter to ACMA; a cynic might conclude that they've determined the outcome that they want and they're just doing the politically "appropriate" thing before they get there - they'll have a "consultation" process, they'll hope it is polarising giving them enough of a "grey area" to conclude that we as a community are unable to come to any kind of consensus and from there will then do exactly what they intended to do in the first place; give us class licenses, leave the community to sort itself out hoping it'll just fall to pieces and everyone will bugger off and do something else so they can justify selling off the spectrum. 

Besides - it's the lowest cost for them. They don't have to deal with the administrative overheads, nor does the AMC. They also don't have to create an illusion of protecting the spectrum, nor will they need to deal with the cost of enforcing its use (including adherence to power limits). The administrative work on their part will be minimal, and the bulk will likely be palmed off to wither WIA or RASA to manage licensing and call sign allocation. Bugger all cost to ACMA. The profit comes when people turn away in droves because they'll refuse to deal with whichever of the two organisations is given control and band utilisation drops and they take it back to carve up and sell off.

These are all just poorly articulated thoughts of course, based entirely upon not much other than reading a few rants from a couple of the more commonly noisy Facebook group admins and hearing a few hams on the air waxing lyrical on what they believe absolutely must happen.

Personally, I'm not convinced any which way. Possibly the class system isn't as bad as we think. Possibly it's where we're going whether we want to or not - and we might just need to work out how, as a community, we're going to make that work. There's already enough polarisation with the endless RASA vs WIA bickering and pseudo-political point scoring. Either way there's only going to be one outcome. It'll either be one that we asked for or we didn't, and we'll have to live with it or leave.

A possible reality is that quite simply we're being offered a "choice" in much the same way that a parent might ask a child if they want pasta for dinner: it's polite but far more rhetorical and far less an actual question. The real choices are pasta or nothing.