Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

When I walked in here this afternoon, I was fearful that I would see the broadcasting light on, and my fears were confirmed. That could be the only reason why we would hear the speech we had from Senator Conroy today. It was a set piece that, quite frankly, would make you wonder what is going on. Everyone knows that Senator Conroy—much to his horror—is actually the shadow shadow minister. The real shadow minister, of course, is Lindsay Tanner, the member for Melbourne. Today’s speech was another attempt by the shadow shadow minister to justify the position that he actually does not enjoy, as we learned from Mark Latham’s book. Senator Conroy does not enjoy this portfolio but, to his great credit, he is fighting very hard to keep it.

I noted with interest that there was a lot of talk about mothers today. I am not too sure that we should be going down the path of talking about the mothers of members of parliament, but that was raised today in the context of the Minister for Finance and Administration. I pose a question: what is the difference between the mother of Wayne Swan, the member for Lilley, and Senator Conroy and the Australian taxpayer? What is the difference between those three? The difference is that the member for Lilley and Senator Conroy are quite happy to bag the living daylights out of Telstra—to bring the Telstra price down—but they are also quite happy to lump the Australian taxpayer with 30 per cent of Telstra ad infinitum. They are prepared to sacrifice with the dog, as they describe it, the Australian taxpayer through the Future Fund indefinitely, but apparently the same rules do not apply to their mothers.

This just shows the utter stupidity and hypocrisy of the position of the Australian Labor Party. What fascinates me is the difference between the member for Melbourne in the other place and Senator Conroy. If you find a position from Senator Conroy, you will find a different position from that of the real shadow minister. They have been going hammer and tongs on this for about two years. Bubbling away under the surface is a fight of some magnitude.

Today Senator Conroy talked about Telstra borrowing to pay for special dividends. He was lampooning that as being totally inappropriate. Again, the real shadow minister for communications, the member for Lilley, said this last year:

Labor welcomes today’s announcement to the Stock Exchange by Telstra that it will focus on its existing business and return money to shareholders.

That was in relation to the announced special dividend—the same special dividend that Senator Conroy was attacking here today.

It is not just in the area of special dividends where Senator Conroy and the real shadow minister for communications, the member for Lilley in the other place, are opposed; it is also in relation to regulation. In February of this year, when the government made its announcements in relation to where it was requiring Telstra to go with separation, Mr Tanner said that not only did he support the government’s regulatory framework but he claimed credit for it. He actually went on to say that it was Labor policy at the previous election. It does not really stack up, but it is always flattering to hear the other side talking positively about what you are doing. He said:

... we are strong believers in a genuine internal separation of Telstra between wholesale and retail, so we can have fair-dinkum, level-playing-field competition ...

They are the comments of the real shadow minister, the member for Lilley. Senator Conroy’s comments are totally opposed. The point I am making in relation to this is that the Labor Party is a policy-free zone in relation to communications. There are two men fighting over the one job who take an absolutely opposite view in relation to the serious matters that confront Telstra and the Australian taxpayer.

The other matter that causes me great concern is the hypocrisy of the Labor Party in relation to privatisation. The Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brand, has been talking about privatisation since the early nineties. He is the one who boasted about the sale of Qantas, CSL and the Commonwealth Bank. And he stood up in the other place, and gave speeches elsewhere, talking about the fact that he was a great supporter of privatisation and that the then Keating and Hawke governments were equally supportive. If I can find the quote I will read it. It will be just at my fingertips I hope—it is indeed, luckily.

On 24 August 1994, the then Minister for Finance, and now Leader of the Opposition, delivered a speech entitled ‘Paying for our future: the changing role of public investment’. We actually got to hear what Mr Beazley really thought about privatisation when he was being totally honest. He said:

Privatisation fits in with the Government’s broader economic imperative to create jobs ... Privatisation is not pursued because of a New Right ideology ...

He then went on:

Privatisation, for instance, can strengthen the performance of enterprises by allowing private capital injections, as happened with the sale of the Commonwealth Bank ...