Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is interesting to note that over the past 10 years, as we have moved forward towards the full privatisation of Telstra, the reliability and availability of telecommunications services have improved. They have not gone backwards; they have improved and the average price of services has fallen by more than a quarter. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that there has been less government ownership and better services delivered. It does not take long to figure that out, if you can concentrate for a moment or two.

I would like to return to the privatisation itself. We have taken this decision in the best interests of the people of this nation. I challenge those on the other side of the chamber to come up with some kind of a plan, instead of being negative and carping and doing nothing but denigrating what the government is trying to put in place—which are very good measures. The opposition has no plan whatsoever. It would be great if they could come up with one, don’t you think, Senator McGauran, and then we could judge what they would do. But we have not seen anything. We saw a bit of a half-baked idea from Senator Conroy some months ago which really did not seem to make much sense at all. Apart from that, there really has not been a lot. Do not sit on the other side of the chamber and argue about what we are doing and what we are taking forward when you have no plan of your own. It is very easy to sit and criticise and carp and it is very easy for Senator Conroy to sit on the other side of the chamber and read article after article. I thought he would have put in a few more of his own comments and his own ideas. It is not too hard to sit over there and read and read. The opposition need to come up with a plan, to come up with some of their own ideas. We have one, we are going to take the nation forward and we will continue to take the best decisions in the interests of telecommunications right across this nation.