Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The third losers are consumers. Any way you look at it, they will be losers. What is happening to Telstra workers? The superannuation entitlements for Telstra workers—for existing employees, not new starters—are being sent backwards because they are being forced out of the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme—a defined benefits scheme that Telstra puts 21 per cent on average into on their behalf. Those employees will be forced out of that scheme into a scheme where 12 per cent will be contributed. They take a risk because it will be an accumulation scheme. Over time, they will be substantially worse off than they would otherwise have been had they remained in that existing scheme.

Why are the government doing this? What is their argument? What is their reason? The primary argument they put forward is the alleged conflict of interest between owning shares in Telstra and regulating telecommunications. They also own Australia Post and regulate postal services. That does not mean that they will therefore privatise Australia Post—although if they get re-elected perhaps that will be on the agenda.

I had a look at the Future Fund legislation the other day, and there is a very interesting set of provisions that have not had much coverage so far, in section 6 and section 8. Section 6 enables the government to transfer shares and financial assets into the Future Fund. Fair enough. Section 8 says that the nominated minister may give the board of the Future Fund written directions about the financial assets. Those directions can relate to how long they hold those assets, how they vote, the rights that are associated with those shares in the company and any other matter. Most significantly, they are not bound by the requirement that otherwise applies to the Future Fund to put the maximisation of returns ahead of all other objectives. So, in other words, within only months, the government has placed provisions in the Future Fund legislation that are specifically designed for Telstra to still be effectively controlled by the government through the power of ministers to give directions to the Future Fund on how they will utilise those Telstra shares.

Where does this leave the claim that the government are removing an iterative conflict of interest? Where is the evidence that that conflict of interest has been taken away? The government still owns the shares, it still needs the dividends, it is still relying on share price and it has specifically put provisions in the legislation regarding the Future Fund to enable it to exercise a degree of control over those shares that will not apply in any other case with respect to the Future Fund. If, as the government say, they have no intention of being anything other than a passive investor, why did they put these provisions into the Future Fund Act? What other conceivable situation could those provisions relate to?

They must have very short arms indeed if this is an ‘arm’s-length arrangement’. There is an alternative. The alternative for this country is to focus on the real problems in telecommunications—the disgraceful performance in broadband that is holding Australia back economically—to retain public ownership of Telstra and to use it in the interests of the nation; to develop high-class infrastructure instead of the dilapidated and declining infrastructure we currently have; and to give Telstra shareholders the certainty and stability that their investment is worth while into the future. Instead of the fiasco the government has created with T3, let us get onto moving to build the arteries of the future economy of the 21st century. (Time expired)

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