Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Hansard source

I want to tell the story of a portfolio so badly handled and so neglectful of the urgent social and economic needs of Australians in relation to the telecommunications network that real damage is being done to our potential to innovate with broadband and digital services. This is the legacy of the Howard government in these early stages of the 21st century. It is a complete foul-up—a complete preoccupation with an ideological privatisation agenda that has led to the compromising and undermining of genuine competition and decent service quality and a stifling of higher bandwidth services.

All of these policy failings were perpetrated as the Howard government sought to prop up Telstra’s share price. This was informed by the government’s desire and consistent motivation, election after election, to sell off the rest of Telstra. But they and Telstra were complicit in preventing the innovative bandwidth services. It was about cutting capital expenditure and keeping costs down; it was not about investing for the future. This manifested itself in a number of ways. Many of us remember staged inquiries by this government over the last 10 years, claims that the network was up to scratch and the minister’s claim—I know it is hard to believe these days—that Australians did not want or need broadband and using that as a way to try to stifle demand for the sorts of services that we knew we were missing out on. They even said that pair gains did not exist—broadband-blocking technology, again a cost-cutting measure for Telstra’s investment in their network. All of this conspired against and led to a failing network that was not keeping up with the social and economic demands of this country.

Then what happened? Along came the three amigos, who were not happy even with this level of complicity. They wanted more—more regulatory holidays and less competitive pressure. And they had a lever to pressure the government with. It was, of course, privatisation. They needed all of this because, I suspect, their bonuses depended on it. So we have watched what I would describe as the ‘Chairman Worm’, the ‘Chief Worm’ and his ‘Wormettes’, in the can of worms that is Telstra in the 21st century, wriggle out of the grasp of the government’s control.

The new management have sought to imprint their US style tactics of depleting all but the most profitable services on these ideologically driven dopes on the other side of the chamber, who have predictably responded with even dopier tactics as they flail about appointing mates to the board and fiddling with the wording of the prospectus so as to continue their perpetual spin.

That brings me to the most recent debacle—the way in which the government is proceeding with the T3 sale. I do not think anything said by the Minister for Finance and Administration in the chamber today or elsewhere will absolve this government of their extraordinary intervention in this float. I reiterate the questions asked today and yesterday by my colleagues. What about probity? What about ethics? What about compliance with the law? Why was ASIC involved? What didn’t the government want in the prospectus—because surely it could not have been any worse than what is in there?

I would suggest that the fact that Mr Cousins was the Prime Minister’s adviser for 10 years is cause for concern not only for the reasons described by the worms in the can of Telstra but also because his advice must have been appalling, given Mr Howard’s terrible stunt of ideologically visionless handling of telecommunications in Australia for the last 10 years. What advice was being given, I ask, by the former CEO of Optus Vision? That is a far more damaging legacy than the $4 billion loss he oversaw.

To conclude, I will highlight the level of executive intervention and interference in Telstra by the Howard government. The government initially sought in inappropriate and sneaky ways to work with Telstra to keep their costs down and their profits fat. This was to maximise the share price in the previous sales. However, more recently, the bullying and desperate ways of the government have demonstrated an arrogance that I think is unsurpassed.

The government think they are above the law. They have demonstrated contempt for legitimate policy tools that have always been available to government to improve the quality of broadband and other services in telecommunications throughout the country. These include: quality service regulation; competition policy, including access regimes; licence conditions; and digital content rules. They have all been there for the using, but the government chose to abuse all of them. Perhaps the gravest indictment is the government’s complete incompetence. Australians no longer believe what they are told by a tired, out-of-touch government that does not have a clue about what this country’s telecommunications needs really are.