Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (Senator Coonan) to a question without notice asked by Senator Ludwig today relating to Telstra and payphones.

The minister failed to convince me but clearly failed to convince Senator Joyce. What we now have is Senator Joyce who has been conned, mugged and done over by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts in relation to the Telstra payphones. You now have a complete list from Maranoa which tells us the sorry tale that Senator Joyce has allowed to occur. He has not only been conned by his minister; he is going to con the people out there who need these phones and who use them.

What Telstra says—clearly he and the minister must both now believe this—is that not only has the demand for payphones dropped but everyone has a mobile phone to deal with their telecommunication needs and we do not need payphones any more: we do not need payphones in the bush to be able to service requirements; we do not need them in places from Roma to Mitchell to Wallumbilla. Two payphones in St George are gone—one near the church; you might know that one, Senator Joyce, and one near the showground, where people might obviously require a phone. Of course, there is Thallon—you might know that place near William Street, Senator Joyce—there is Barcaldine, where two have gone; there is Jericho; and a swag have gone from Charleville. There is Augathella; the Augathella motel has lost its phone. Blackall has lost a swag. Then there is Longreach, Warwick, Tara—and so it goes on. Telstra has hung up on the bush and Senator Joyce has hung up on the bush. What we have is the minister, with Senator Joyce’s compliance, hanging up on the bush because the regulations are now no more than hot air. That is what they are.

We have allowed Telstra to remove 5,000 payphones and it is still planning to dump more when it gets privatised; I have no doubt about that. But Telstra, in the universal service obligation, is only required to maintain a third of its 32,000 phones, so the government has given the green light—Senator Joyce has also voted for that—to hang up on the most vulnerable in our community. We will end up with a situation where schoolchildren who do not have a mobile phone, people living in the bush who do not have a mobile phone and plenty of others—the elderly in the community—who will not be able to afford a mobile phone, who will then have been given a green light to say, ‘I don’t have any telecommunication needs at all.’ We warned Senator Joyce and we warned the minister—