Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy President. I asked him about the cost to taxpayers of this remarkable proposal. He could not give me any estimate whatsoever of the cost to taxpayers of what the government is proposing to do. He could not say why Telstra should be excluded from further participation in the wireless broadband spectrum auctions, even though the market for mobile broadband is the most competitive and the one market in the telecommunications field where Telstra does not have a majority. If Senator Conroy is motivated by a concern about Telstra’s market dominance, which is apparently the motivation for breaking this company up, why on earth in the government’s policy proposals on restricting Telstra would you pick the one market to restrict Telstra where Telstra is not dominant? This is a market where Telstra’s competitors have a majority of the market.

I draw to the Senate’s attention that this proposal does have very significant implications for taxpayers. By taking Telstra out of any future auction for spectrum, you obviously reduce the competitive tension available to the government in selling its highly precious spectrum, which is ultimately the property of taxpayers. It must by definition reduce the value of that spectrum, and Senator Conroy today indicated that he has absolutely no idea. I wonder whether the government has made any costing at all of this or whether it has even thought of the fact that this will cost taxpayers. Indeed, Senator Conroy laughably said in his answer that the whole question was hypothetical, despite the fact that it is very clear in his statement and in his legislation that Telstra will be prevented from participating in future spectrum auctions.

I think the non-answers to our questions today expose the real motive behind the government’s actions. The government is proposing to use the threat of exclusion from future spectrum auctions as the gun to Telstra’s head over the NBN. This whole NBN policy is falling down around the ears of Senator Conroy. It is universally regarded as a complete fiasco. What the government wants to do, and what is nakedly evident from its legislation, is to force Telstra to effectively hand over its fixed line network to the new NBN Co. In his second reading speech, he actually said that the separation that they propose:

… may involve Telstra progressively migrating its fixed line traffic to the NBN over an agreed period of time and under set regulatory arrangements and for it to sell or cease to use its fixed line assets on an agreed basis.

There we have it. That is what this whole circus, this charade, is about. This is about holding a gun at Telstra’s head to force them to come to the table in handing over their fixed line assets to make the NBN viable. The government knows that without Telstra the NBN is simply unworkable and unviable. It has to get hold of Telstra’s fixed line network somehow. It showed through the fiasco of the first failed tender that the method of compulsory acquisition, direct and upfront, would cost it some $20 billion. That is why the first NBN failed and collapsed after 18 months and $20 million of taxpayers’ money. Now the government is going through the back door by using the threat of denial of access to spectrum to force Telstra to come to the table and hand over its fixed line network. This is a naked grab in order to rescue this NBN fiasco from the $43 billion hole into which it has sunk. Telstra’s shareholders are paying the price. They have lost $17 billion in the value of their shares since this circus of a government came to office.