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

That is correct: because they are not commercially viable. When you move into a free-market regime, say your prayers if you are in the outskirts of cities. Do not think this is confined to country areas. We are talking about semisuburban areas. They are suffering greatly. One community in my area which is most certainly a stone’s throw from Cairns—it is about 20 minutes in a car—was without telephones for two weeks. In my nearly 35 years in parliament, until Telstra was sold I could only think of one example where the telephones were out for more than seven hours. It was because there were Telstra workers at every community point throughout North Queensland. They could get there quickly, assess the problem quickly and fix it up quickly. Since then we have had seven centres that have been out for two weeks—including half of Innisfail, a town of 20-odd thousand people.

I go back to this paper we have prepared. We thank Anthony for his preparation. Eight: cheap deals end up costing consumers a lot more because of the download limits. Customers should be made more aware and more informed by the provider. BigPond is probably one of the providers that creates the most problems with extra costs. When customers reach their download limit on a cheap plan of, say, $29.95 a month, the extra cost to them is very great. No matter who the provider delivering the broadband is, the exchange and lines are maintained by Telstra. Most internet problems are Telstra issues. Telstra is a privatised concern and, as I said before, they simply do not get the repairs done. So whilst these things are marvellous and, I am sure, will have great benefits for the cities, I view with extreme scepticism how valuable these services will be to us.

I am country born, from the little town of Cloncurry, which has a very limited local library. We did not have many outlets, particularly intellectual outlets. I was a prolific reader, as are many people who come from little towns such as the one I come from. The first purchase in my life when I got a little bit of money together was my rifle. My second purchase was Encyclopaedia Britannica, for which I shopped around because I could not afford to buy it new. I got it second-hand. They were very well worn copies because they were the internet of the period. It gives you some idea of the very great value.

I remember from my own home area a gentleman named Mr Dave Christerson. He started with absolutely nothing. They used to say he sold the cattle down at Cloncurry before he bought them up at Kajabbi. He did not even have a horse; he had a saddle. He would climb on the mail and go up to Kajabbi and then buy the cattle that he had already sold. I think a lot of the hedge fund managers in Sydney would understand his operations well! He became a very successful cattleman, but the first thing he bought when he had a quid—I remember it very well; he had some very pretty daughters!—was a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. That opened the doors for us bush kids to see and to access a wider world, and broadband can provide exactly the same advantages for us if we are given it and if we are given it in such a way that it becomes a genuine service that we can afford and that we will get repaired when breakdowns occur.

In my previous speech, which emphasised the sale of Telstra more than broadband but took in broadband, I made reference to what would happen if Telstra were privatised and we then had a change of technology. I remember raising this with great aggression in our party room. Looking back on the years, I can only remember twice in my seven years in the party room where anyone who said anything in the party room was ever taken any notice of—only two issues in seven years with 20 or 30 meetings a year—so I did not lose anything by not being admitted to the party room. Looking back on it, it was an utter waste of time.

I think it is an important point to make to the House. I also said on the issue of Telstra that we have changes of technology. I owned a cattle station for a couple of decades up in the never-never land. We were about 230 kilometres from the nearest town; and, much as I love Croydon, it is a pretty rough definition of ‘town’, with 100 people. We lived right out in the middle of nowhere. But I saw four changes of technology there. The copper wire did not originally reach us, but it reached some of our neighbouring neighbours—neighbours to our neighbours—so we saw copper wire transmission of information, a telephone if you like. The copper wire was replaced by DRCS technology, and that was replaced in our case by satellite. We did not have access to DRCS but some of our neighbours did. Satellite was the third technology, and the fourth technology that came in was HCRC. There were four entirely separate changes of technology in the space of about 15 or 16 years.

Then, the government simply told Telstra—which was an instrumentality that they owned—that they would provide this service to all Australians, including those Australians who lived 200 kilometres from a town. That is what the government said. The government did not cost Treasury anything, so all we had to do was to wedge the minister or wedge the leader and put a lot of pressure on him, and then he would simply tell Telstra to do it and it would happen. But if Telstra is privatised, you cannot do that. You cannot tell Telstra to do it if they are an independent body. They would tell you to go jump.

The implications of this are that you would have to ask Treasury for a handout; whereas before we could say, ‘It’s our right’ and the government could direct their instrumentality to provide the service. These wonderful people who come into this place—in one speech they will tell us about justice and in the next speech they will tell us about markets. You know, they will tell us about how our free markets are going to save and rescue us all. Have a look at Woolworths and Coles and then tell me about free markets. Have a look at the transport industry in Australia and then tell me about free markets. Have a look at the mass media in Australia and its ownership and then tell me about free markets. As I have said on many occasions in this place, their problem is: their mummies and daddies did not get them to play Monopoly when they were young. If their mummies and daddies had got them to play Monopoly, they would know that when you own all of the utilities you have got six times the income!

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