Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

That is an interesting concept. You build a freeway and it clogs—so, on the basis of her logic, we should build no freeways. What a ridiculous proposition to put before the parliament. She says we should not be building any freeways. Even if we were not talking about moving people out of the cities, one would think that it would be nice and helpful if they could move fairly swiftly in and out—at least get a bit of rest and relaxation from the cities. What an extraordinary statement! You are obviously a oncer in this place. I hope you are not, but for your sake I indicate: a few more comments like that and you will be.

The service guarantees were promised by us when I was a member of federal government. I said to the party room: ‘Is there anyone in this room that seriously believes that when Telstra is privatised we are going to get a guaranteed service? Put your hand up anyone in this room that believes that.’ I am not going to say—because I am not allowed to say—whether anyone put their hand up or not. But, if you were a betting man, I know which way you would be betting. It was a most extraordinary proposition that was put before us. I doubt whether there was anyone naive enough to believe it.

It was one of the only times one of my colleagues has asked me to leave this place because I got so angry. In 35 years, it is probably the only time I can remember. I have asked some of my colleagues to leave because they have got so angry I thought they were going to hit somebody. The only time I was asked to leave was on this issue. It was when National Party members were telling us that we were going to have an adequate service, that we were going to have a service guarantee. You can come to me and say, ‘We’re going to privatise Telstra,’ but do not come to me and tell me an absolutely outrageous lie—that you are going to guarantee the services to us. What an absolutely incredible proposition.

We now know who was right and who was wrong. In the little brochure that I put out there is a picture of Telstra customers at a town called Chilverton, outside of Ravenshoe in North Queensland. It is on the Atherton Tableland. I attended a number of meetings there. These people went without telephone services for two weeks. When the big boss of Telstra came up, I said: ‘Aren’t you blokes supposed to guarantee services? Don’t you get sued or something? Don’t you have to pay?’ He said yes. It was $37 or $42 a day or something for every day that the phone was out. So I said: ‘Can all these people be paid then? It has been out for two weeks.’ I do not know what the figure was, but it ran into thousands of dollars that some of those people were entitled to. He got all sheepish. He is a nice bloke, but it was a bit like in this House when people are answering questions that are a bit difficult. He ummed and ahed but eventually I had to pin him down. This is what he said: ‘Oh no, we don’t have to pay in this case because there was a major outage in the region.’ I said: ‘There were no major outages in the region at all. What the hell are you talking about?’ He said it was in Townsville. I said, ‘Are you telling me that we had six inches across the roads in Townsville over the space of about 12 hours and that caused major problems for Telstra in North Queensland?’ He did not answer me. He said: ‘Look, Bob, at this point I cannot answer that sort of question. I do not have the detailed knowledge.’ There is your guarantee of services! It is not worth the paper it was written on.

It was not until a state member and I waded in that it became a very brutal public issue for Telstra in the national arena. That was before they completed the sale, when things were still blowing in the wind and we were still working on a policy promise from the ALP that Telstra would not be sold—a promise which it flagrantly broke. In fairness to the ALP, that was on the eve of an election, but it was still a flagrant reversal of policy. The people of Chilverton will tell you what that guarantee of service is worth: it is worth absolutely nothing. The only good thing with Telstra being sold off was that otherwise there would have been no way in the world that a Telstra official would have come to Chilverton. They only came because they were taking a hell of a bath and were still very conscious of their PR, as they wanted to make sure that Telstra could be sold as fast as humanly possible before the ALP got in. They need not have worried—the ALP was going to sell it faster than the other mob.

I have talked before about Mary Murgatroyd in Julia Creek. A few people have said to me, ‘You have made Mary Murgatroyd in Julia Creek very famous.’ But does anyone seriously put the proposition forward that when Mary Murgatroyd’s telephone breaks in Julia Creek she is going to have exactly the same service fix-up time as a person in the suburbs of Brisbane? Is that seriously the proposition? We are pretty stupid sometimes and a bit slow in the bush—they reckon the sun gets at us when we are out mustering or whatever—but we ain’t that dumb that we will go and wear that one. People in the bush were quite staggered, particularly at the National Party. The ALP and the Liberal Party do not purport to represent the bush but the National Party does purport to represent the bush. The bush will be the place that suffers most from this. I believe the suburbs of Townsville and Cairns that I represent will be ill served. Big users will get their repairs pretty quickly but ordinary people in the suburbs will cop it sweet. We people of the country areas of Australia will get it very bad indeed.

We thank the government for their broadband proposals but we will hold our fire and our praise—and I think my southern colleague will agree with me—until we see the government actually carry this out. We were told a big lie—or at least it was a very big deceit—by the last government on the $2,000 million for the bush. We will now see whether this government is into deceit or whether they are fair dinkum and if they will supply a service which, in this case, every Australian should have and which, with modern technology, they should have at a reasonable price. If you want to cut down and eliminate the country people of Australia then just understand that this country’s 10 major export items provide half of the nation’s entire income from overseas and without good services you will wipe all of those industries out, because people will not live in the bush without those sorts of services. We will reserve our thanks until we see the reality. We thank the government for their rhetoric but all we have had to date is rhetoric. We will see whether they are more than rhetoric and whether they are fair dinkum.

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