George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will not waste any time in responding to Senator Bernardi. He is obviously still very much a learner and very green behind the ears. When he learns a little bit about what he is talking about then we may pay a bit of attention to it. The response you get from the other side of the chamber is interesting when you raise any criticism of the way in which they are managing either the Australian economy or bits of it. Senator Minchin was asked a question about the sale of Telstra and the first words out of his mouth were: ‘It’s all your fault. It’s all the Labor Party’s fault.’ I do not recall the Labor Party ever taking a decision to sell Telstra.

From memory, the decision to sell Telstra was taken when you won government. I recall that it was your platform. You went to the people and said that you would sell Telstra and you went to the people with the plan to sell a part of it. You are the people who devised a plan to sell a part of Telstra, and that is where the whole problem that you are now faced with regarding Telstra emanated from. You could not wait to unload it. In the same way, at the last election, when you won the numbers in this chamber—when you had the 39 votes—you could not wait to get the bill in here and get the decision to sell Telstra. You were so anxious to get the decision that you even guillotined the committee stages of the debate in the chamber. And what have you done since? You have made an absolute mess of the organisation. You have cost the people who were gullible enough to buy the shares in the first place substantial funds—1.6 million shareholders have lost substantial funds as a result of your handling of Telstra.

You appointed Mr Trujillo as the CEO. We are used to the situation in which CEOs in this country are paid substantial salaries, exorbitant salaries—outrageous salaries, most people would say. But what has become consistent with the outrageous salaries is that we also pay them bonuses when their companies are going badly. The share price of Telstra is half of what it was and the CEO picks up a $2.6 million bonus. How much would he be worth if Telstra were actually going well? We would not be able to afford to pay him. Mr Trujillo did a very good job in suckering in the previous company he worked for in the United States, with the payout he received from that company, and he has certainly done a good job of suckering in you lot, in terms of the arrangements that he has made for his salary in this country.

We were accused by Senator Fifield of wanting to hang on to the old socialist mantra—wanting to hold on to Telstra in public ownership. Let us play a little bit of a guessing game. Who said, ‘There is too much instability in the telecommunications market to consider the sale’? None other than the government’s partner in crime: The Nationals. Senator McGauran, you are no longer with them, so you can leave. You are no longer a part of them; you got out. That is an organisation that has been wedded to socialising the losses and privatising the gains for the whole of their history—their whole history has been predicated upon agrarian socialism—and they have woken up to what is happening in terms of Telstra. Senator Minchin, the reality—and you cannot get away from it—is that this mess is of your own creation. This government has created the mess that Telstra now is, and you ought to be man enough to stand up and accept responsibility for the outcomes of the policies that you and your government have put in place. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.