Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I am sure that you will recall that the National Party actually voted for the privatisation of Telstra, and I am sure they regret doing so now. They probably regret it more when they look at the remarks of Senator Coonan, who actually regrets not putting more thought into what would happen to a privatised Telstra in terms of its market access and the way it behaves as a monopoly.

The commentary in this area has been very supportive of what the government has done. You only have to go to a couple of commentators. Time is not with me, but I will read what Adele Ferguson says. She states:

… the World Economic Forum recently released a report ranking Australia 17th in the world for availability and use of information and communication technology—well behind many of our trading partners and competitors.

The finger can be squarely pointed at Telstra for this embarrassingly low ranking … Since the telecommunications sector was deregulated in July 1997, Telstra has acted like incumbent telcos the world over—it has sandbagged the competition to protect its market dominance. It has been able to dictate the speed of uptake in technologies such as broadband, wireless and voice over internet protocol … No wonder we are considered backward.

How did we get to being considered backward? It was under your watch.