Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009 and, in doing so, indicate that the coalition has some significant reservations about some of the components in this bill. In that light, I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:‘given Labor’s rash, unjustified and irrational change of policy to force the break-up of Telstra in an arrogant attempt to prop-up its risky $43 billion National Broadband Network, further consideration of this bill should not proceed until after the NBN Implementation Study is presented to the Parliament’.

The reasons for that amendment I will make clear in my contribution but, essentially, that amendment highlights where the coalition has severe reservations about this bill. There are, within this bill, legislative amendments that go to some specific powers of the ACCC under the Trade Practices Act, some changes to the universal service obligation and to the consumer service guarantee. It is not in those areas where we have our major grievance. If Labor were sincere in wanting to bring about that regulatory renovation, they could certainly consider moving forward on those areas where the coalition has no contest on the government’s objectives. Regulatory renovation was a part of the telecommunications landscape during the previous Howard government and will continue to be during this federal Labor government and in governments to come. What the government has done is to fit up that regulatory renovation with the most extraordinary attack on private assets, private capital, funds of investors and on a private company that this nation has ever seen. For those telecommunications companies that are often competitors of Telstra, I understand their glee and delight at some of these provisions. In terms of comments attributed to my friend Ravi Bhatia and others about the regulatory renovation, my urging to them would be to encourage the government to fill out the regulatory renovation provisions while the far more contentious—some would say extraordinarily draconian—measures relating to Telstra are properly debated and analysed. That is my invitation to the telecommunications sector, to those access seekers that rely on Telstra’s infrastructure and to those who are looking for the regulatory renovation.

What is in contention is the new part 33 of the Telecommunications Act, which provides for Telstra to structurally separate. If Telstra does not—and I use the words of the bill—‘voluntarily’ submit an enforceable undertaking to structurally separate to the ACCC, this bill before the parliament requires functional separation of the company. We have often heard in times of conflict overseas that you never negotiate with a terrorist. If this is not an example of telecommunications terrorism by this federal Labor government, I do not know what is. For those people sitting on the sidelines cheering on this assault on Telstra, its value, its operational arrangements and its shareholder equity, I would ask them to think what if it were you. You might have a grievance with Telstra—many have, and I have had a number over many years—but just imagine what we are seeing here today. We are seeing a parliament assaulting a private company. It is a company where shares are directly held by 1.3 million Australians, and nearly all of us have some stake in the asset that is Telstra through superannuation investments and the like. What we are seeing is a government taking a meat axe to the company, or at least waving it and any other device of corporate assault over the head of Telstra, to bludgeon it into doing what the government says it should do.

This is an extraordinary day in corporate life in Australia. For anyone interested in sovereign risk, corporate governance and the interaction of private equity, private assets and private companies with the central government, this is a time they should be taking notice. If this passes without much of a whimper from the private sector, from those that are holding shares in the company, from those that are investing and from enterprises themselves simply because it is Telstra, it sets up an extraordinary precedent. What next? Which company will be next? Which sector will be next?

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