Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to raise an issue that I have raised here in the Main Committee and in the other place on numerous occasions since I have represented the area of Cranbourne, which is a fantastic area and suburb in my electorate of Holt—that is, the great injustice that the people of Cranbourne face when they go to pick up a telephone. Unlike people in a lot of other suburbs in the surrounding areas, when the people in Cranbourne pick up a telephone they get charged an STD rate. They are not charged under the metropolitan untimed local call zone. That is due to a historical anomaly where Cranbourne residents and businesses paid this STD rate when calling central Melbourne. It has been in place, I think, since about the 1960s and it has never changed, in spite of massive urban growth around this particular area.

Cranbourne was a country town some number of years ago—no doubt about that—but it is now a rapidly growing suburb with lots of young families purchasing land and house packages. It is a suburban area which is being charged an STD rate. The government knows about this. It has been petitioned about this. It has been lobbied by members of parliament about this particular issue. But I would suggest to the government that, instead of spending $25 million advertising the sale of Telstra, instead of putting one of the mates, Cousins, on the board of Telstra to reward him for his services to the party over the years, what it may do on behalf of the long-suffering residents of Cranbourne—the residents of Cranbourne who had to wait 10 years to get a Medicare office, the residents of Cranbourne who have a Cranbourne information support service basically underfunded to provide emergency relief, the residents of Cranbourne who have a pool that is about to be built that has no federal funding, those residents of Cranbourne that have to beg the government for any essential service—is to actually have this anomaly removed.

The government still have a chance. They are still a majority shareholder. Even though they are about to flog off a major part of our national asset, they can still influence the decision. So I guess the question that the residents of Cranbourne want answered is: how serious are the government about taking this injustice, this anomaly, this outrage away? They should not have to pay an STD rate. The residents of Berwick, which is a suburb next to Cranbourne, do not have to pay it. When the residents of Frankston, which is next to it, pick up the phone they do not have to pay this particular STD rate. So my question is: why is it the residents of Cranbourne—as I said, in a rapidly growing suburban area—have to pay this rate? It is a disgrace, it is an injustice and if the government were serious about taking their concerns into account they would take the local— (Time expired)