Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy is right—the coalition did have a big celebration last night. They had a big celebration for very big reasons. The coalition after 10 years in government have achieved an awful lot for Australia and changed things for the better for this country in many areas. If you quickly look through what has been done, you will see that we have record low interest rates. I remember buying a house in south Perth in 1989 under the Hawke and Keating government and paying 19 per cent interest rates. Nobody would even think about that sort of thing now. Now they are down to five per cent. We have record low unemployment. Under the Hawke and Keating government, unemployment was around 10 per cent. Under the Howard government it is down to five per cent. We have record growth rates. In fact, the demand for people with skills is so great in places like the Pilbara and Queensland that we have a skills shortage. That is again a reflection, if you like, of the size of the Australian economy and the way it has grown under the Howard government. Most importantly—and Senator Conroy should not be leaving the chamber so quickly—we have paid off the Commonwealth government’s debt of something like $96 billion left by the Hawke and Keating government. So, yes, the coalition did have a lot to celebrate last night. We are very pleased to have been able to do that.

When it comes to telecommunications, which is really what Senator Conroy was focusing on, the government’s deregulation of the telecommunications industry has been enormously beneficial to the Australian population. If you go back 10 years and think about the prices which applied then and the limited range of services and if you look today at the deregulated telecommunications market, where there are over 100 different telecommunications companies, you will see that prices have dropped and the range of services has greatly increased. In particular, telecommunications services in regional Australia are certainly a lot better than they were 10 years ago. In the most remote areas of Australia this government had a special contract of something like $150 million, I think it was, for services to 40,000 people living in the most remote areas of Australia. That was a competitive contract. Telstra and Optus competed for it and Telstra won. These people in the most remote areas of Australia are now getting access to the internet and to much improved telecommunications services compared to where they were 10 years ago.

This government has a wonderful record which we are very proud of and which has brought great benefit across many fronts to the people of Australia. Today Labor has plucked out one individual example of a price increase in telecommunications, but Senator Conroy just ignored all of the examples of price decreases over the past 10 years. The reality is that, overall, telecommunications prices have dropped by some 20 per cent since the Howard government was elected in 1996. That is an enormous drop. I think we all remember quite well how expensive telecommunications services were under the previous Labor government and how long it took to have phone services connected under Labor when there was no universal service obligation or community service guarantee. Labor come in here today and complain about a single price increase. They are really trying to divert people’s attention from their own dismal record. To talk about the great party that the coalition had last night surely must be envy at its most poignant.