Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be part of the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills and to make my contribution. This budget reveals the high price all Australians will pay for Labor’s reckless spending spree. After inheriting the most favourable set of economic conditions, it has taken only 18 months to achieve a record $58 billion deficit, put one million Australians out of work by 2010-11 and record a net debt of at least $188 billion by 2012-13. So much for working Australians! Labor introduced tax hikes which increased revenue by $26 billion. Have you noticed that the Labor Party have stopped talking about working families? Because they will continue to put them out of work. The annual interest bill paid by the Australian people in 2012-13 will be $8 billion. That is more than $9,000 a year for every Australian. Sadly, Labor have lost control of Australia’s finances.

In my electorate of Canning, 68 per cent of residents will be affected by changes to private health insurance through higher premiums because of Prime Minister Rudd’s broken promise to not change health insurance rates. While I welcome the rise in the rate of the single pension, my office has been inundated with calls from local pensioners trying to cut through the spin. Let us not forget that the government did not really want to raise the pension. They stalled and waited for a review. The increasing pressure from the opposition and age groups forced this move. No doubt Mr Rudd’s spin doctors, Hawker Britton, had told him that it was inevitable.

The government talks about corporate greed and golden handshakes. Surprise, surprise, in an effort to tackle the growing epidemic the government has launched a new review. I understand that the Productivity Commission will report on executive remuneration by the end of the year, and today I want to raise one of the worst examples of corporate malevolence in this country. I have been an ardent critic of Telstra in recent years. After Sol Trujillo’s appointment as CEO, Telstra’s mantra was complete domination and thuggery, played out in a high-stakes game of aggressive bluff. Telstra wanted to reduce the regulation that applied to it, limit competition and, in turn, cost everyday Australians more for the privilege. Mr Trujillo and his American mates ripped apart Australia’s national carrier but made sure they looked after themselves in the process. But now we, including Prime Minister Rudd, have said ‘adios’ to Sol Trujillo, his four amigos, and chairman Donald McGauchie. I can only hope a new era for this country’s leading telco has dawned. But I fear it may be a case of blink and you will miss the change.

Armed with a $600,000 relocation bonus, Trujillo arrived in 2005 with a throng of American consultants in tow—Bain and Co, which was paid $54 million, led the way. His amigos—Greg Winn; Bill Stewart; the belligerent so-called government relations manager, Phil Burgess, who probably did more damage to government relations than any other single Telstra executive; and Tom Lamming, senior vice-president of transformation—came to implement his vision and have all now departed, or have announced their departure, from the sinking ship, significantly richer personally for their efforts. Sol came with a plan but was ignorant as to doing business in Australia. He wanted $12 billion to turn Telstra around. Sol’s plan was so anticompetitive no-one could come at it. He offered to build a fibre-to-the-node network for Australia on the condition that Telstra did not have to share the network with any of their competitors. If they did have to share it, okay, fair enough: they would just have to make it so ridiculously expensive that no-one could afford it. Contrast this with the recently announced sharing of rail-line infrastructure in the Pilbara.

Sol’s plans did not work. Let us look at his scorecard. While sales are up, Sol promised that costs would be held at 2005 levels. They have risen by eight per cent. He said he would cut thousands of jobs to reach his efficiency targets. He achieved that—10,000 good Australian workers lost their jobs. While pretending to be as nice as pie, he sacked Aussie workers and stripped them of their entitlements. A complacent and weak board led by Donald McGauchie let this happen and even Geoffrey Cousins, who was appointed to the board by the former Prime Minister, John Howard, was complicit in these decisions. Sol promised up to 30 per cent of revenue would come from new products. This is not the case. Net profit is down by 14 per cent. But one statistic he made sure was looked after was his own salary: this increased by 54 per cent.

Sol was one of the worst corporate executives that this country has seen. At the expense of Australian shareholders he travelled the world and stayed in lavish hotels. He was already an obscenely wealthy man, having netted an estimated $70 million to $90 million payout from his former telco job. By all reports he was particularly fussy with his tastes, which had to be catered for. For example, Pepsi Max had to be available at all times, maybe because he was a former board member of PepsiCo, and he even indulged in making sure that there were almonds, bagels, Las Vegas trips, private jets and suites with up to $10,000 a night price tags.

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