Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to Senator McLucas for the question. I share her disappointment to hear of Telstra’s decision to close two regional call centres, one in Cairns and a second one in Maroochydore, and that 83 staff in each call centre will be affected. The government never likes to hear about job losses, particularly in regional communities. The matter has been raised with Telstra, and they have advised that all affected staff in Cairns and Maroochydore will receive full redundancy benefits to assist them to find other employment, either internally or externally. That includes assistance with career planning, financial planning and advice, preparation of CVs, and interview skills and assistance with both internal and external job searches.

The job cuts are part of Telstra’s much publicised transformation program, which was announced in November 2005. The transformation program involves reducing its workforce numbers by around 10,000 over the next five years as a result of the introduction of new technologies, improvements to business systems and increasing competition. This of course includes rationalising call centre operations and adjusting resources to remove duplication, to improve efficiencies and to reduce costs. Naturally, as Senator McLucas would appreciate, we are disappointed by this decision, particularly in regional centres where these cuts will be felt more deeply and other suitable jobs may be more difficult to find, even though of course we are experiencing record low unemployment rates.

Having said that, it raises the question as to where Labor’s credibility is when it comes to workforce issues. Let me remind the Senate that when Labor was last in power unemployment was at 10.9 per cent and a million Australians were unemployed. Over the last 9½ years we have seen 1.8 million extra jobs created in Australia. Almost a million of those 1.8 million jobs have been full-time jobs. In relation to Telstra jobs in particular Labor has a pitiful record. Telstra staff numbers fell from 90,000 to 76,000 between 1990 and 1992. I ask you: who was the communication minister at that time? It was none other than Mr Beazley. Since then, the competitive framework set by the government has allowed more than 150 new providers of telecommunications services and, according to the International Telecommunication Union, that now employs approximately 77,000 people. Work commissioned by ACMA has estimated that the government’s competition reforms, commenced in 1997, have increased employment by about another 23,300. Labor has nowhere to go in criticising this government on jobs. Labor has nowhere to go, and this government’s record on jobs stands without blemish. This government will not be flip-flopping; we will continue to look after the consumers of Australia.