Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have the privilege, I think, of being the only historian in the parliament—in the House or in the Senate. My published work was published by the Murdoch Press, the big boys on the block, so I can speak with some authority on the history of our country. I was brought up in a country where the wool industry had carried Australia for some 200 years. In 1990 it was still the biggest export earner that this country had. Mr Keating deregulated the wool industry. He's a free marketeer. He believes in private enterprise running and owning everything.

As a result of this deregulation of the wool industry we now effectively have no wool industry at all. We still have some fat sheep, but there is no wool industry now at all. To take my own state electorate, we had 3½ million sheep. I doubt whether we've got 100,000 sheep there now. In the cattle industry, our cattle number is down eight million. The wool industry has gone completely. The cattle industry has gone down from 32 million down to 24 million, the herd, so one wonders what the hell is going on out there. Well, nothing is going on out there. That's what's happening. The sugar industry, which worked Australia out of the Great Depression, is the third- or fourth-biggest agricultural earner and about the 12th-biggest earner of export income for Australia. All of the sugar mills were Australian owned: 23 of them were farmer owned; three were Australian corporate owned. Now all 23 mills—three have closed—are foreign owned. You've wrecked the wool industry, you've wrecked the sugar industry and you've been an absolute disaster for the cattle industry. Notice I'm not saying Liberals or Labor, because both of them have been heavily involved in the disasters that have occurred and taken place in agriculture in Australia.

Let me switch to the electricity industry. We don't necessarily represent people like me, just rural industries. I speak with authority because I was the electricity minister in Queensland, and when the government fell in 1990 to the so-called socialists, the ALP, the price of electricity for a household was $640. There's no justification for electricity being over $700. I should know, because I was the minister. Not only was I the minister but I was also the minister that put the first standalone solar system in Australia. In 1983, when most of you weren't even born, we put the first solar system in. I know the industries backwards, and being a mining man I know the cost of mining and processing silicon into solar cells. The great tragedy of this is—I can't speak with authority for the other states—that in Queensland there is no justification for anyone paying over $700 for their electricity, and they're currently paying $3,200 for their electricity. For those people that put solar panels on their roof and get electricity from solar, we're going to cut down 500 million trees in Australia to have solar electricity. I don't know that that's a good trade. About five million acres are going to be denuded and turned into an industrial wasteland of rotting glass and aluminium. The honourable minister Plibersek knows we have algae ponds from coal-fired power stations which can absorb all the CO2—you need a lot of land and a lot of water to do it—and you'll make, on the figures I've seen, more money out of the algae then you'll make out of selling the electricity.

We are talking tonight about the communications system of Australia, and it's an essential service. There were two people who died on a cattle station I own, 250,000 acres. They died on the boundary, and if there had been a telephone service then one of them would have survived. There were three cattle boys, my father and his two brothers. I come from a family that went out on a stagecoach in the 1870s or 1880s to the middle of nowhere, and that's where we've always lived. Of the three cattle boys, two died as a result of the tyranny of distance. If we're talking here tonight about communication systems, then we're talking about the tyranny of distance.

My Uncle Norman got injured in a motorcar accident and then again in rugby league. If the plane had been in Cloncurry, he would've got to Brisbane in time and his life would've been saved. But the plane was in Longreach and, by the time it came back to Cloncurry and then went to Brisbane, it was too late and he died. My father had cancer and he was supposed to get an operation, but there was an airline strike. He was in no condition to drive down, so the airline was the only way of getting there. He wouldn't jump the queue, so he waited 3½ months, and by the time he got down there the cancer had got away and he died. So two of the three Katter boys died as a result of the tyranny of distance.

We were trapped during the wet season. It was an all-dirt road to Brisbane then. My father, rather foolishly, tried to drive it in the wet season. That was a very bad mistake. We all nearly perished. We were sitting in the car with our rosary, saying prayers, and my father had third-degree burns because he tried to walk for help. By some miracle we were rescued. But if we had had the telecommunications we have today, that would not have occurred. The danger would not have existed. Where I come from, it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Ernie Camp represents one of the biggest shires in Queensland, the Burke shire, right up in the north-western corner of Queensland. Ernie's wife said that they're just driven off their heads because of the lack of telecommunication speed with their computers. John Nelson is one of the leading cattlemen in Australia. He's probably one of the 30 or 40 biggest cattlemen in Australia. I said, 'If you had your choice of what you want, what would it be?' I thought he'd say 'water' or 'freeholding' or something like that. He said, 'Proper internet speed.' There are two people—they're two of the most prominent people in outback Australia—and both of them are saying 'internet speed'.

There's the Liberals and the Labour Party. The Labor Party likes to pretend that they don't want to privatise everything and that it's the Liberals who want to privatise everything. But if you actually have a look at privatisation, they did most of the privatisation, not the Liberals. I'm sure the Liberals would've if they had been there, but Keating hadn't left much in the cupboard for them. There was nothing much for them to sell. Of course, we all know the reason why Christine Holgate was sacked. It was because she wouldn't sell Australia Post. In fact, the mortal sin was that she wanted to turn Australia Post into a people's own bank. Heavens! The people of Australia owning their own bank and controlling money! Oh, what a communistic outlook she had! So they had to sack one of the greatest businesswomen the country had ever produced—or ever will produce, probably.

We're talking about the government. They're claiming that we don't need a universal service obligation, which is the amendment that I have proposed. I have highly skilled people, one of whom was a senior counsel adviser producing documentation for the NSW government and is definitely no slouch. She can't actually find anywhere in where a statement that there is a responsibility for a universal service obligation.

I can't conclude my speech without mentioning Ben Chifley, the Prime Minister without peer. He is easily the greatest Prime Minister the country has ever had. He was a protege of the great 'Red Ted' Theodore. Chifley eradicated tuberculosis in Australia. He gave us the Snowy Mountains Scheme, which doubled agricultural production in Australia and gave us a secure electricity supply for all of Australia, up until now—and I emphasise 'up until now'. He gave us, as a secondary industry, the Holden motorcar as well. What a fantastic contribution to the Australian nation! Of course, he's in the history books.

Now, Kevin Rudd will also be in history books because he gave us the NBN, the best communication system anywhere in the world.

No-one can ever take that away from Kevin. He also gave us the NDIS, which I think may be the most marvellous thing I've seen done since I've been here. It's had a lot of teething problems, but that's natural.

Going back to the NBN, all I can say is that we're a long way from where we should be, when there are people like Ernie Camp's wife—Ernie Camp's family, like my own, have been there since the 1870s, I think, maybe longer—and one of the 20, maybe 30 or 40 biggest cattlemen in Australia both saying to me that the problem is communications. So I urge the government to accept the amendment we are proposing so that there's a universal service obligation.

When it was proposed in the Liberal and National party room that we were going to privatise Telstra, I left with my feet. I was still in the party room then. I left with great anger. A man I had immense respect for, John Howard, assured me that I had no worries and that there would be a universal service obligation. Well, as much as I love John and respect him, I sure would like to put the number of complaints we've had about telecommunications. I had a quick glance, and something like 200 complaints have come into my office this year. That's the universal service obligation! It's a joke.

You're moving now into an area where we've got no guarantees. If you say it's going to provide a wonderful service for everybody, why don't you put it in the legislation? It is silly to think that Mary Thomas, living in Julia Creek, is going to sue Telstra, but at least give her the chance to sue Telstra, please, with a universal service obligation. If you're saying that you're giving it, where is it in the legislation? Where is it in the regulations? Minister, whether you're responsible or the minister that may be primarily responsible, would you please tell the parliament and the people of Australia where the universal service obligation is, and, if it's not there, would you please accept our amendment?

I think I have some locus standi here, representing about a tenth of the surface area of Australia, with one of the biggest electorates in population in Australia, ironically. So I think I have some locus standi here. Having come from a family that has suffered and lost so much as a result of the tyranny of distance I think also qualifies me to state: where is the universal service obligation?

When we were bogged to the eyeballs in the motor car, the sun came out and the rain went away and we had about 17 hours to survive. You can take some water out of the radiator, and we had a fair amount of water with us. But my father tried to walk for help. He ended up with third-degree burns and was hospitalised for almost a week, recovering from heat stroke. He was trying to save our lives whilst we sat in the car with our rosary beads, saying prayers. I won't say how we were rescued. But, if we'd had a mobile telephone, that terrible situation could have been avoided— (Time expired)

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