Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a poverty tax. Many of my constituents often complain about the lack of customer service which they once enjoyed when purchasing goods or services. They remember a time when they built a relationship with their local service providers. Now these customers are today being charged to enjoy the pleasure of face-to-face customer service. I want to mention a couple of issues brought up by my constituents. Paul, a resident of Woodcroft in my electorate of Kingston, emailed me with his great disappointment over Telstra charging this fee in what he deemed an unnecessary charge for customer service. Paul raised a very important issue. He believes that this fee discriminates against people with no online access. We must keep in mind—and I know that members here today experience the same issue as I do in my electorate—that a lot of people do not have access to ADSL broadband and, even if they want to pay online, they are unable to do so. As an aside, I would like to commend the government’s visionary approach to building a national broadband network because this is very important, but there are many customers and people who do not have access to broadband and they need to pay in cash.

From the correspondence I have been receiving from both Telstra and Optus customers, it is not just the fee increase that has angered them. They are frustrated that they will have to pay extra for what they see as a very basic service. Peter from Christies Beach has highlighted to me via email that it is an unfair charge, one which he believes is nothing more than a fee for nothing. This motion which seeks support for looking at this in a very detailed way is really just asking for a standard service in our community—the ability to make payments in legal tender in person if people choose to do so. I really support the part of the motion that looks at the need to investigate the impact that these types of charge have ant I commend the motion to the House.

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