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

In reference to the parting comments of the member for Grey, I remember as a relatively young person having to go out and untangle the party line, which the galahs or whatever had twisted up, or a branch had fallen across it. Irrespective of our views on telecommunications, some of which I am about to give, I think we would all say that there have been some improvements over those years. Telecommunications, obviously, as I know you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would fully recognise, is quite possibly the most important piece of infrastructure of this century. We talk about roads and railway lines et cetera, but telecommunications will be the most important infrastructure, particularly in country Australia, because it is the one thing that negates distance as being a disadvantage for rural Australians. It can do that on a whole range of levels. It can do that at the medical level, for instance, by piping through information, analysis, diagnoses of various diseases and engagement with specialists irrespective of where they happen to be located. There is a whole range of benefits in areas such as health and education. We are all fully aware of that. It has the capacity to allow people to do business in a country location and, in a sense, if they can gain equity of access in price and conditions of service, it gives country people an advantage over their city cousins because of the obvious lower infrastructure and overhead costs in running a business in the country compared to in the city.

The keyword is ‘equity’ in service, access to that service and the price of those services, whether they are telephone services, broadband services or services that we do not even know exist. I will be supporting the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Protecting Services for Rural and Regional Australia into the Future) Bill 2007 today. The member for Grey said that this was going to ‘lock in’ the $2 billion Communications Fund. We are all adult enough to know that nothing locks anything in in this place. No government or piece of legislation can guarantee that the Communications Fund lasts more than the term of this parliament, which could be two or three months. Our Constitution says that no parliament can bind a future parliament. To say that this is locked in to future proof country Australians as to telecommunications is really a myth. I know the coalition would say that the only way to lock it in is to vote for the coalition. People will make up their own minds about that but, in technical terms, it does not lock in this fund. This is a $2 billion fund, the interest of which will be available. That is roughly $100 million a year—maybe a little more after yesterday’s announcement, but about $100 million annually—to future proof country Australia from some of the impacts of future technology and attempt to provide some equity. Most of us would know that $100 million in this fast moving technological age will be quite meaningless in the longer term and can be changed at the drop of a hat. We are amending the legislation today. We can amend it tomorrow and do something completely different with it. I remember the days when the National Party in particular said that they would never sell Telstra. Times have changed. ‘Never’ does not always mean never, does it? These sorts of things can change.

There has been a tendency to demonise Telstra lately. The government should reflect on what it has done for Telstra. It was the government that moved to privatise Telstra; it was the government, as the custodians of the public purse, who had a controlling interest in Telstra on behalf of the public; and now it is the government that is whining about a private company, which it has created in a sense, trying to make market movements to achieve the highest share price for its shareholders. I have been critical of Telstra over some of the things that it has done over the years, but there has been a constant barrage of insults coming from the government towards the management of Telstra in recent months. The government should examine who created the monster that is now being demonised. It is quite visible to all now that the very things that were being spoken about at the time of the privatisation—that country people would expect a better service under a private business where there was some competition apparently, and that it would provide a better service for country people than public ownership—are coming home to roost.

We have an extraordinary circumstance at the moment, which is being articulated in a number of country areas. I will give an example of one circumstance in my electorate, and I would be very surprised if it were not happening in the electorate of Mr Deputy Speaker Haase as well. The little town of Yetman, where a number of international businesses are attempting to operate or would like to operate, does not have any mobile services at all. Its people have not got to the argument of broadband, WiMAX, ADSL2+ and the optic fibre of the city. They do not have mobile services at all. They have been appealing to the government and to Telstra for some time about the provision of those services and the provision of a tower.

I attended a meeting in Yetman some months ago where Telstra Countrywide made the point that they would look at providing a service to the people of that area, which is right on the Queensland border, if the community came together and provided a site, a road, electricity and the tower. I am pleased the member for Maranoa is here today, because that tower would provide some services to his electorate. If the community provided the site, the road, the tower and the electricity to the tower, Telstra would look at potentially putting a mobile aerial on top of the tower.

In the seat of the member for Gwydir at the moment a similar arrangement is being broached in the small community of Pilliga, which is in the middle of the Pilliga scrub. That is not what the government committed to when it sold Telstra. It did not say to people in small communities, ‘By the way, when we sell this, competition will provide.’ I did not notice any of the competitors out in the street of Yetman, and I have not heard of them in Pilliga. Obviously, competition is not going to provide in those smaller communities where you have commercial operators who have to make a return on their investment.

I was shocked when the former leader of the National Farmers Federation, Peter Corish, made the public statement that the NFF would support the sale of Telstra and that it had conveyed that message to Senator Barnaby Joyce because he was wavering. Senator Joyce used the NFF’s support for the legislation as a reason finally to vote for the legislation. In a sense, this bill grew out of those circumstances. Peter Corish said at the time that he had received written guarantees from the government that there would be equity of access to broadband and telephone services for country people, and the minister confirmed that. A number of questions have been asked during Senate estimates hearings, in the Senate and in this House about the issue, but people seem to have forgotten about that. The issue raised its head again even as late as last week, when the minister referred to a draft regulation to bind Telstra not to turn off the CDMA network until Next G is comparable. That relates to the equivalence-of-service argument, which reminds me of the up-to-scratch argument. If a reference to equity of access to service had been in the letter to Mr Corish and had been enshrined in legislation, there would be no need for the minister to introduce regulations because the CDMA/Next G switchover seemed to be slipping away. I am sure that the election has absolutely nothing to do with that draft regulation.

People will remember that the government, not Telstra, gave those commitments about equity of access to broadband and telephone services. But what will we get? We will have a two-tiered system: an optical fibre network in the major cities and a combination of ADSL2+ in some regional centres, WiMAX—which provides slower broadband coverage—and subsidised satellite coverage for one per cent of the country, which no-one seems to know about. Of course, satellite technology is subject to a range of climatic effects. As a result of these arrangements we will not have equity; we will have a two-tiered system. Country people may have accepted that if the government had told them the truth, but it said that competition would drive many of these issues. The government guaranteed and said it would enshrine equity of access to broadband and telephone services in legislation, but that has not happened. Rather than simply shifting the debate to demonise Telstra, the government parties—particularly the National Party and country Liberals, who should have known that they were being sold a pup at the time—should look at the way they made some of those decisions.

I have referred to the regulation that the minister has foreshadowed introducing to ensure that Telstra does not switch off the CDMA network before Next G provides at least an equivalent service. I have a couple of points to raise about that. I have received about 3,000 completed surveys from constituents about their attitudes to the changeover and the problem areas. Telstra, to its credit, has offered a vehicle to have its officers visit the areas in my electorate where people are saying that they are not getting the service that they did with CDMA, or any service at all in some cases. We will be able to rely on the information provided by real people in real circumstances rather than on Telstra and government maps. Those officers will be visiting the electorate of New England in a couple of weeks, and I am pleased to be able to take part in that process.

Next G advertisements state that the service will be available anywhere that it is needed. In fact, a large roadside sign has been erected with that ad on it, but you cannot get through. I will not identify the site, but I will take the Telstra officers there. It will probably have an aerial within a week! That advertising campaign should be looked at. I have a Next G phone and I would rather it was much narrower. If it were flattened by a semi-trailer it might work better than it does now. 

The changeover to Next G has not been handled well. I raised equivalence of service with the Prime Minister on two occasions in one week in the parliament and he eventually wrote back to me. I made my initial complaint during Senate estimates hearings when officers from the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the minister were being questioned about how they intended to gauge equivalence of service. Their response was that a truck would be driven around Australia for eight days to gauge equivalence between CDMA and Next G services. It was also admitted that the truck would not go anywhere near the Northern Territory, Western Australia or Tasmania. The theory was that if a service existed in New South Wales the same service would exist in Western Australia.

The Prime Minister did write back, and I thank him for his letter. He said that it has changed. I notice that the minister has also said that it has changed because they need an extended period of time—which will get them past the election—to examine equivalence of service. They will now need a 12-week period to examine it. So the period of time to examine the equivalence of service has gone from eight days to 12 weeks. That is an improvement. Why wasn’t it done in the first place? Why say that you can gauge the equivalence of service in eight days? It is impossible to drive around a quarter of Australia in that time and measure the reception that people would receive.

Today in Tamworth, which is where my electorate office is located, staff from the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts are in town. They are holding a communications forum on broadband, mobile and consumer issues. This is very good. They communicated with the people in that area about this forum yesterday afternoon. They put out a press release at 12 o’clock. I received a call from one of the media at about two o’clock saying, ‘Are you going to this?’ I said: ‘No. I am in Canberra. I doubt whether many other people will go because no-one knows it is on.’ Minister Coonan has sent these people to Tamworth. I raise this today because, if she is going to send staff around Australia to talk to people about their concerns, she should give them some notice—communicate with them so that they can turn up. Or is the agenda to have something on record so that they can say, ‘We went to Tamworth and no-one turned up, so there is no problem.’ People cannot turn up if they do not know something is on. I had a call from the ABC media this morning saying that they had just found the press release. The meeting is on now. It started at 11 o’clock—seven minutes ago. If that is the form of communication that country Australia can look forward to from this minister and this government, God help us.

My electorate office rang me this morning to say, ‘We’ve just had a call from a receptionist’—I do not know whether she is the minister’s receptionist or the department’s receptionist—‘saying that she is getting calls in Canberra about a meeting that the department is supposedly having in Tamworth and could my electorate office inform her of what is happening so that she can tell the people who are ringing her up.’ These people have just heard on the radio that there is going to be a government briefing, which is how it is being promoted, in Tamworth. If the minister is serious about the concerns of people then give them time. Or is the agenda, as I said, one of knowing what the concerns are but not really wanting to hear them?

I will convey to the minister and to the Prime Minister and others the results of the survey that I am doing in my electorate. I will be participating with Telstra in a survey to gauge the equivalence of service between the two networks. I would encourage other members to do that. I believe that every member has been offered the opportunity, and only five have accepted. The current system is going to offer a two-tiered system, which is contrary to the government’s commitment on the sale of Telstra. Liberal Senator Adams gave the game away when she said at a doorstop interview that rural areas cannot expect proper services. I raised this with the Prime Minister and I raise it again now: why not? In a nation that has done so well with its economic advancement, why can’t country Australians expect equity with their telecommunications now and into the future?

In conclusion, this legislation, which I am supporting, guarantees for at least three months that $100 million a year will be available for future proofing. That is not sufficient for any future proofing. (Time expired)

See this speech in context