Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent private Members’ business notice No. 1 given for Tuesday, 25 June 2013, Telecommunications Amendment (Protecting Local Workers) Bill 2013 standing in the name of the Member for Melbourne, being called on immediately and being given precedence over all other business until all stages of the bill have been concluded.

There are about 390 jobs that are about to be lost, starting in the next few days, unless this parliament acts before it rises. Jobs associated with producing and printing the Yellow Pages and the White Pages are about to start going offshore to India and the Philippines in a few days time unless we act. There is a simple mechanism to stop this, and that is contained in the Telecommunications Amendment (Protecting Local Workers) Bill 2013. It is also one that I have raised with the government on a number of occasions over a number of months and, in the absence of a proper response to that and with only a few days left, the appropriate course is to suspend standing orders to deal with this urgent matter. Currently the jobs associated with the White Pages and the Yellow Pages, both in print and online, are all taking place here in Australia, primarily in Melbourne and Sydney. Now Telstra—and its subsidiary, Sensis—is currently under a legal obligation that flowed out of the privatisation of Telstra to produce the White Pages and make it available to anyone who wants it. That is an appropriate service that it provides to the Australian community and it is appropriate that this parliament continues to regulate that, because Telstra was a public company that was built up with public support, including government support and support from this parliament.

Mr Katter interjecting—

As the member for Kennedy says, it is the people of Australia who built up Telstra and its predecessors. The mechanism proposed in this bill is a very simple one. It says that for so long as Telstra, through its subsidiary, Sensis, produces the White Pages and the Yellow Pages in online form and print form they should be produced here in Australia.

It would come as a shock to many people, if you were to ask them, to learn that the White Pages and the Yellow Pages could potentially be produced overseas, but that is what is about to happen. We know that because Telstra and Sensis have announced that from 1 July they want to make 390 jobs redundant, sent offshore and outsourced. They will be sent to India and they will be sent to the Philippines, where the graphic design work and the call centre work will be done. Telstra is a company that last year made a record half-yearly profit in the order of $1.6 billion and its subsidiary, Sensis, made a profit of $650 million. Simply to make a bit of extra cash they are about to make 400 jobs disappear from this country.

When there is a threat to car manufacturing in this country—when there is the prospect of hundreds of people being made redundant—this parliament and the government rightly say that this is a matter of national importance and we should do what we need to do to focus on it, to see what we can do to stop the jobs from going offshore or to mitigate it. I say that a job in graphic design or in a call centre should be worth as much as a job making a car and those jobs should be performed here. It is perfectly legitimate to ask what was formerly a public company but remains a national carrier—and a highly regulated one at that—to keep those jobs onshore.

I mentioned the urgency of this. Over two months ago I wrote to the relevant minister and said, 'There is a problem coming, and we in this country are about to see almost 400 jobs added to the scrap heap and sent offshore simply to make some extra profit for a very large and very profitable company.' I have not had a response to that letter. When I called I was told that the government was considering its position. Here we are with 2½ days left before the end of this parliament, and from 1 July there are a number of people, many of whom are in Melbourne, who have the high-value, high-wage jobs that we hear Labor talk about a lot, and they are about to lose them because it is cheaper to go to India or the Philippines for this highly educated workforce. So it will be the case that, for the sake of making an extra few dollars for a company that is already bringing in massive, record half-yearly profits, when you go to organise your ad for the Yellow or White Pages, it will be done in India or the Philippines.

I suspect that, if you asked most people in this country what they would prefer—400 trained people staying in high-skill, high-wage jobs here or allowing Telstra to send those 400 jobs offshore just to make a bit of money—they would say, 'Let's keep that workforce here.' It is important to recognise that the question of globalisation and the challenges that this country is facing do not just exist in the manufacturing, tourism or education sectors; they exist in those sectors where highly educated and skilled workers are now competing with people overseas. This is the kind of step that we have to take if we want to turn the phrase 'high-value, high-skill, high-wage workforce' into a meaningful reality. If we do not, it really means nothing.

We have heard a lot about protecting local jobs over the last couple of months, and my criticism has been that it has been very high on rhetoric but low on action. Here is a chance to take some action. Here is a chance for a very simple measure. If we support this suspension, debate this very simple bill, pass it this afternoon—because it is a simple bill that can be easily understood—and get it to the Senate in the last couple of days of this parliament, we will have saved almost 400 jobs here in this country without parliament or the government having to spend one extra cent. All we will have done is said Telstra has an obligation to the Australian people. Telstra, as a successor to public companies built up by the Australian people, continues to have obligations to those Australian people. That is not just an obligation to make the White Pages available; it is an obligation to make sure it is produced locally. This will be a very simple bill to support, will come at no cost to the government and will make a massive difference to a lot of people. If we do not support this bill then, from 1 July, 390 jobs, including many in my electorate of Melbourne, are going to start going offshore and will have gone by the end of September. That is what Telstra and its subsidiary Sensis have said.

Given that parliament is rising and given that there is currently no intention to reconvene before September, this is our last chance. If the government has another plan to save these jobs, I would love to hear it, but we are at five minutes to midnight for these workers and their families; and, for the cost of absolutely zero, a public company the government heavily advertises in, has a commercial relationship with and we regulate in respect of other things could make some contribution to the Australian people and Australian society. So I hope that this suspension and the bill itself gains support. It would put some meat on the bones of all the talk we have heard about protecting local workers. We would be sending a very clear signal that a job in these white-collar industries is just as important as a job in blue-collar industries.

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