Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to speak on behalf of people within Adelaide’s western suburbs, especially the suburbs of Camden Park and Edwardstown. These people were left without telephone lines recently and would like to see Telstra given more incentive to repair telephone services in a speedy manner. Telstra has a customer service guarantee which specifies what they pledge to do within certain time frames, and what they will pay the consumer if they fail. The concept of a customer service guarantee is, I think, just as important for such a company in full public ownership as it is in mixed ownership or some other ownership structure.

A recent problem saw Telstra extend to affected customers the interim telephone service. In one case this was coupled with an interim telephone answering machine to minimise the disruption of the service break for the customer through incompatible technologies. This is one instance where you can watch what they do, nod and say to yourself, ‘Good on them for that.’ Constituents are less reassured by the fines imposed on Telstra for failing to meet their customer service guarantee. The guarantee states that, if Telstra fails to connect or repair the service within the specified time or on an agreed date, a payment of $12—a measly $12—for residential or charity customers, or $20 for business customers will be incurred. It might be payable for each day it takes to fix the problem over the prescribed time or for up to five working days. Beyond the initial five days delay, customers may be entitled to receive a payment of a mere $40 per additional working day of delay. I suspect paying fines like these, which are about the size of a parking ticket to most of us, would mean less to Telstra than any statistics showing customers whose needs were not met by the customer service guarantee. Customers who under some strange set of circumstances were not adequately serviced in 2002-03 through to 2003-04 received an average fee of around $24.

Telstra’s fines amount to approximately $2 million per year. Failure by Telstra to meet the customer service guarantee might not be such an inconvenience within households but I question whether the same can be said for businesses where multiple people are reliant on telephone and other services for the generation of thousands of dollars each and every week just to keep their doors open. A $40 fine per day is not likely to reflect the inconvenience, loss of opportunities and costs of having no business communications, nor is it likely to give Telstra additional resolve to meet their deadlines and restore services. Negative publicity would be much more harmful than such insignificant costs. I suggest that customers would be more likely to receive the very best service if Telstra’s inconvenience were more in proportion to their own. In light of the sale of Telstra, as we head towards its full privatisation, it is certainly an area that should be looked at. I encourage this government to ensure that those fines are increased. (Time expired)