Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I believe you have used it in the past yourself in relation to speeches in this particular place. The debate that we are having today relates to the future of Telstra, and government members have spoken very strongly in favour of privatisation and the full sale of Telstra. What they have not mentioned is that they are not selling it. Thirty per cent of the business is going to be hived off into the so-called Future Fund, which is still public ownership. It is still owned by the people of Australia. Just because David Murray and a few friends of the Prime Minister are going to be the so-called custodians of the people’s asset does not mean it is sold. If the government was serious about this spiritual guidance that it follows in terms of privatisation being good for everything, why didn’t it sell the lot? If the government was serious about this spiritual divine guidance in terms of privatisation, why did it reverse its stand on the sale of Snowy Hydro? I will tell you why it reversed its stand on the sale of Snowy Hydro: because the Prime Minister started to listen to the people.

This government has not listened to the people on this issue. The National Party has been referred to on a number of occasions, and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry made probably the worst speech I have ever heard him make in trying to defend something that is indefensible in terms of his own party. No-one from the National Party was in the chamber, other than the Deputy Speaker. There was no-one from the National Party here to represent their communities, who are obviously opposed to the full sale of Telstra. Any surveys that have been done by National Party members themselves, by Independents, by members of the Labor Party or by members of the Liberal Party—the member for Hume, for instance—have all demonstrated that country people in particular, but all Australians in general, do not want this sold.

Is it any wonder people are cynical about the political process when the people they put into this parliament do not represent the basic views that they themselves have made representations about; when their representatives do not represent their views in the parliament? I will tell you something, Mr Deputy Speaker. A lot of country people will have a choice at the next election, and this will be one of the issues at stake because there will still be 30 per cent of Telstra owned by the public. The Future Fund, as I understand it, has a two-year period before it can sell any more of our assets. I am not an expert in corporate law; maybe the minister at the table, the Minister for Human Services, is and he might like to speak about this. But my understanding of corporate law is that 30 per cent is a controlling majority. So the people will still have a say on this particular issue.

I urge country people and Australians generally: when they vote at the next election, look very closely at whom they are voting for, particularly those in the country who will have real choice in their members of parliament at the next election. They will be able to determine who represents them instead of those who turn up every three years or so and wander about, saying, ‘We are here to represent you,’ as the National squad often say. ‘We are here to represent you; we are here to represent you.’ We have seen what has happened with that sort of depopulation representation in the seat of Gwydir. Gwydir and Parkes have lost the greatest numbers in population of any region in Australia. Tasmania was in front of Gwydir a few years ago, but it has picked up in recent years. Then those people wonder why this is being brought upon them. Why are these dreadful people from the Electoral Commission perpetrating this dreadful event? I do not agree with it either, but one does not have to be Einstein to work out that the massive depopulation of some of these areas in country Australia is related to the policy of the people who are purporting to represent those people in the parliament—and they have failed.

The other word that I picked up on, other than the term ‘bribe’—which apparently you overlooked, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley—was ‘scratch’.

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