James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's pretty low to want to spread fear and misinformation to some of the most vulnerable people in our society with motions such as this on captioned telephone handsets and contributions in the debate on this motion which are completely inaccurate and just spread fear and uncertainty to the most vulnerable in our society—people with hearing issues and people with speech issues. These people have had in place from this government a service that, unequivocally, is continuing into the future fully funded at $22 million a year. Instead, we've got the Labor Party prosecuting a matter which has nothing to do with the Commonwealth government's power. It's to do with a particular proprietary telephony product that is owned by an American company that they choose to license exclusively to another company that will no longer be continuing to provide a service because a better service has been selected by the government, through a free-market tender process, to provide enhanced outcomes for the most vulnerable people in our society.

The National Relay Service provides a vital support to people that need that kind of support in communication. As I mentioned, it's relied on by people with hearing issues and people with speech issues. There are a whole range of different ways in which the NRS supports people to communicate and have the kind of interaction that they deserve to have support from government for in our society. The reality is that we quite rightly went out to the market and put this tender into the market place so that the existing provider could appropriately be held to account against other potential providers that might in fact offer an enhanced service or a service that provided better value for money to the taxpayer. What has happened is that the existing provider was not successful because we went with a new provider that better met the requirements for this service going forward. The government makes no apology for that. We had a situation between 2015-16 and 2018-19 where the cost of the NRS service blew out by 45 per cent over that three-year period. That just means that we don't have the same quality of service that we can support to all the people that those services.

What this motion suggests is that a particular proprietary product, CapTel, which as I say is owned by an American company, yes, is being used by a number of people in our society. It was sold to those people by the previous provider, and they happen to have the exclusive right to that technology in this country. There's nothing that the Commonwealth can do about that. We have been seeking with that company—I know the minister has been corresponding with the company—whether or not there are ways in which they would be prepared to let existing holders of that product continue to use it and to licence that product to the new provider that's been selected by the Commonwealth. It is from an American company. I don't know what the contractual situation they have with the previous Australian supplier is, but the reality is that at this stage there isn't an avenue forward for them to transfer the right to use that service across to the new provider. That is unfortunate, but it doesn't change the fact that we have got to make decisions in the best interests of taxpayer funds and providing the best service for the people that need it.

This is one particular piece of technology. Tomorrow Apple could choose not to sell the iPhone in Australia anymore, and that would be regrettable, but that's at the end of the day a decision of that company. There are other providers around that provide all kinds of technologies that are comparable. We've been working very effectively with all the users of this technology because of the situation that is created by a relationship between two companies It has nothing to do with the Australian government. There are competitor technologies that can be embraced. Technological innovation is exciting. It is always improving into the future, and the fact that this one particular handset won't be useable into the future because of a proprietary relationship between an American company and an Australian company should not prevent the government from making sure that we're making decisions in the best interests of taxpayer funds and service provision to the most vulnerable people, who need those services.

The scope of the tender that went out ensured that, and we made a decision to go with a new provider. It will be the best outcome for the people that we are servicing and will ensure we get best full value for the service that we are all paying for.

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