Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

If this matter were not so serious, one would smile at the contribution from Senator Ronaldson, who would have us believe that the controversy about Mr Cousins is all the Labor Party’s doing and that Mr Cousins’s CV is impressive. I think Senator Ronaldson referred to Mr Cousins as having a ‘strong background’ in telecommunications. It is so strong that the public record shows that when Mr Cousins was the CEO of Optus Vision the company lost $4 billion. That is how strong a background Mr Cousins has. But it is not just his so-called ‘strong background’ of a $4 billion loss in telecommunications when he was the CEO of Optus that is worth noting—he has worked for the Prime Minister in the Prime Minister’s office for some 10 years as a political adviser.

It is not only the Labor Party that has kicked up a fuss about the quality, or lack of quality, of this appointment and its timing; other commentators have done so. I do not know what the Senate has been reading over the last week or so but, for example, Mr Stewart of the Australian Shareholders Association—hardly a front organisation for the Australian Labor Party—said:

Cousins’ nomination virtually guarantees board instability.

That is from the CEO of the Australian Shareholders Association. Mr Ross Barker, the Managing Director of the Australian Foundation Investment Company—again, hardly a Labor Party front—said:

Ultimately, from an investor’s point of view we want to know that the board is going to function after the sell-down.

Any number of commentators have been critical of this appointment—commentators who have nothing to do with the Australian Labor Party. This proposed appointment, on the threshold of the government selling its majority down from 51 per cent to whatever the figure will be, has created enormous uncertainty around the future of Telstra.

What Telstra does need—and certainly what the average punters, the mum-and-dad shareholders, and the future shareholders need—is some certainty about the future of Telstra. If they do not get that certainty, it will affect the price of the shares when the shares are sold. The ongoing uncertainty around Telstra, which is the result of a lot of incompetent decisions made by this incompetent government, has seen shareholder value decline dramatically. Go and ask the more than one and a half million Australians who purchased T2 shares what has happened to the capital value of their shares in Telstra. We have seen a range of bad decisions by this government over the last 10 years around Telstra, not just with regard to its privatisation but also with regard to the regulatory regime. The appointment of Mr Cousins is just the latest in a long debacle of incompetent decision making by the minister in this place, Senator Coonan, and by Senator Minchin in terms of the privatisation process.

I have a copy here of the prospectus released today by the Telstra board, as is required by law. In that prospectus is an assessment by Telstra of Mr Cousins—it is not the Labor Party’s assessment or the assessment of the independent commentators I have referred to. Under ‘Risk Assessment’ it says:

Telstra operates in a highly regulated environment, and the Commonwealth and its agencies are the key regulators. While Telstra acknowledges that Mr Cousins has served as a public company director, Telstra believes there is a risk if Mr Cousins cannot be considered an independent director that this could prove disruptive to the smooth and effective functioning of the board. Were this to occur, this could also affect Telstra’s ability to attract and retain qualified directors.

That is in the prospectus. That is the view of the Telstra board about Mr Cousins, the timing of the appointment and the quality of Mr Cousins as an appointee. Mr Cousins is a political hack. He lost $4 billion at Optus Vision. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.