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

One thing we can say about Senator Ludwig is that he certainly cannot be accused of pedantry, because he was not displaying any signs of learning in that speech. In fact, it was a most inaniloquent speech.

It is very interesting that the person who would probably know most about payphones in St George, Senator Joyce, just advised me that the very process that this government put in place is working there, because the consultation that they required Telstra to undertake actually took place. The consultation was with the mayor. Senator Joyce has not had one complaint about those payphones. They were not profitable. Consultation took place with the community and they were removed.

That is exactly what we have forced ACMA and Telstra to do: make sure that when those payphones are removed it is done in consultation with the community. That is the way the system works. But what amuses me most about the Australian Labor Party is that they now have another shadow minister. Poor old Senator Conroy—my friend Senator Conroy—is now the shadow shadow shadow minister, because Senator Ludwig is now getting involved in communication matters.

Why doesn’t the Labor Party give Senator Conroy a go? On this side of the chamber we think it is about time he was allowed to fulfil his position as a shadow minister. Everyone else is jumping over the top of him—Mr Tanner and Senator Ludwig. They are all having a crack at it and it is about time that he was allowed to do his job.

There are 60,000 payphones in Australia, as Senator Eggleston said. I was trying to think of the number of unprofitable payphones but I was suffering from a bit of lethologica. I think there are 7,500 payphones which cannot be removed because of the universal service obligation. But this government has made absolutely sure, when discussing any of these matters in relation to communications, that it talks to the people who are affected.

Is Senator Ludwig really saying to us that he does not think that consultation should take place? Is he saying that consultation should not take place? There was a bit of echolalia there, I will admit. Is the Australian Labor Party going to put these payphones back? Senator Ludwig, through you Deputy President, are you going to put them back? Let the record show that Senator Ludwig had his head down reading from his papers and refused to answer my question: are you going to put the payphones back? Clearly not, because Senator Ludwig has his head buried in his papers and refuses to answer the question. Is the Australian Labor Party going to change this policy by putting them back? No.

The only way you could possibly change this is to take away the community consultation. Is that what the Australian Labor Party intends doing? Is that what we are going to get? Clearly, that is the situation.

If you look at the record of this government in relation to our commitment to regional and rural Australia, it is second to none. The Minister for Finance and Administration is at the table and he knows—he is even more acutely aware than the rest of us—the extraordinary amount of government funding, taxpayer funds, that have gone into regional and rural telecommunications.

For 13 years under the previous government nothing was done. We had the analog debacle. If you look at what has been said by the Australian Labor Party over the two years since the last election, you will see that they are still totally devoid of a communications policy. There is absolutely nothing. The only thing that we have got from the Australian Labor Party that is expansive in relation to this is the fact they have so many shadow ministers. (Time expired)