Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This legislation is simply a gun to the head of Telstra Corporation; it is a gun to the head of a publicly listed major Australian company. The minister pretends that the legislation is all about choice. But it is a Clayton’s choice. It is a choice between ‘cut out’ or ‘get cut out’. It is a choice between ‘volunteer to structurally separate’ or ‘be cut out of future licensing operations’. It is a choice between ‘bear the cost of separation’ or ‘stand fast and bear the cost of being cut out of the market’. The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009 was not Labor policy until the minister announced it as such in September 2009. Labor did not take this policy to the election because they knew it would hurt millions of Australians, millions of mums and dads, Telstra shareholders.

Speaking about the separation at budget estimates last year, Minister Conroy said, ‘I’m not advocating it; I’ve never advocated it.’ The separation was never Labor policy—until the minister announced it in 2009. Why? Because there is no case for this bill. Minister Conroy has spectacularly failed to demonstrate any case for this bill since he forecast the changed policy in September 2009.

Rudd Labor is proposing to solve a supposed problem without any data to quantify its proposed solution. Now why should we be surprised about that, from a government that was elected on the basis of ‘let’s do evidence based policy’ and that has spectacularly failed to do exactly that? Indeed, its record is exemplified by its very failure to do that. So why should we be surprised? The minister’s second reading speech on this bill says simply:

Telstra is one of the most highly integrated telecommunications companies in the world—

as if the statement of the fact that Telstra is highly integrated is proof of the fact that it should be unintegrated—and I use that word, if it be one, in preference to ‘disintegrated’, but that may well be a consequence. Let us hope it not be intended by the minister.

A recent Senate inquiry heard from Foxtel, who said the draft bill proposed dramatic changes to the regulatory regime despite the government not having undertaken a rigorous analysis or inquiry into whether there has been significant market failure justifying any changes. Well, why should we be surprised about that? Why should we be surprised about the government persisting with a bill for which there is no case when that bill is bad for mums and dads and shareholders of Telstra? There are 1.4 million shareholders, nine million customers and some 30,000 workers. What about the workers, Minister Conroy? What about the workers?

Institutional investors are clearly opposed to the erosion of the value in Telstra’s shareholding. Worse, as Maple-Brown Abbott’s submission to the Senate inquiry pointed out:

The bill … runs the risk of damaging Australia’s sovereign risk rating as well as stifling investment and innovation in the telecommunications sector.

It is an extreme and unacceptable way of forcing a company to bargain with the government. Why should we be surprised about that from Rudd Labor? The Australian Foundation Investment Company’s submission warned:

If the Parliament passes this legislation we think Australia’s investment standing could be significantly diminished. Investors, particularly international investors, will perceive substantially heightened sovereign risk if the Australian Government can act arbitrarily in this way.

Synstrat Management’s submission said they considered the bill to be ‘legal trickery’ and an ‘unethical way for the government to conduct its business’. So why should we be surprised that Minister Conroy and Rudd Labor are persisting with a bill for which there is no case when that bill is simply bad for rural and regional customers?

In many parts of rural and regional Australia Telstra is, like it or not, the only service provider. It presently offers competitive, metropolitan comparable pricing to much of rural Australia and recently reduced pricing on Next G wireless broadband services, bringing Next G into the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s definition of metro-comparable broadband. But if Telstra is separated, will there continue to be some cross-subsidy of the services currently provided to rural and regional Australia? If Telstra misses out on 4G wireless spectrum—and there is a clear prospect under the bill that it may—how long will rural and regional Australians be forced to wait for a new market entrant? What proof or what confidence does the government have that there will be a new market entrant capable of delivering to rural and regional Australia? And what of the universal service obligation? If Telstra is separated, is the government proposing to guarantee that rural and regional Australians will have access to quality and affordable telecommunications services somewhat like those guaranteed under the current universal service obligation provisions? That is yet another question that remains unanswered.

So why should we be surprised about the government persisting with a bill for which there is no case, arguing that it is necessary for competition when there is already significant competition in the marketplace? Data from ACMA and the ACCC indicate the level of competition. ACMA’s Communications report 2008-09 released in January showed that, as of June 2009, there were 175 licensed telecommunications carriers, three mobile carriers offering six networks covering some 96 to 99 per cent of the population, more than 600 internet service providers and almost 400 fixed-line voice service providers in Australia. The Optus submission to the current ACCC review of price controls on Telstra says that prices in retail telephony markets have been falling due to the amount of competition in the market—that is, a large number of retail providers competing vigorously for market share. An ACCC submission to the government’s regulatory reform paper of June 2009 said no specific legislative changes are required to address competition concerns in relation to the allocation of spectrum. So why should we be surprised about Minister Conroy persisting with a bill for which there is no case?

Really, the only case for the bill is to save the National Broadband Network and to save the minister’s ministerial face. It is all about the NBN, stupid. Contrary to the government’s claims that the bill is about enhancing competition and delivering better and more affordable services to consumers, several of the witnesses to the recent Senate inquiry, for example, are in little doubt about the purpose of the legislation. Again, Maple-Brown Abbott say this bill is ‘a high-risk strategy to deliver the NBN’. It is simply a stalking horse for the National Broadband Network. This bill is all about the NBN, stupid. It is a cover for the lack of action thus far on the National Broadband Network. What have we got so far on the National Broadband Network? If there is an implementation study, we have not seen it. Indeed, we are not even sure that we will see it at all. No, there is no implementation study that we know about, Minister, but there is some sort of study by NBN Co. itself. Senator Conroy previously told us that the implementation study would ‘work through the detailed network design and rollout schedule for the NBN’ and ‘the extent of coverage that will be achieved’. So the key issues are network design, rollout schedule and the extent of coverage that will be achieved, amongst other things. Interesting. Presumably NBN Co. has got sick of waiting for your implementation study, Minister, because NBN Co.’s Mike Quigley says NBN Co. is seeking its own answers. He said last week:

We’re looking at the engineering tasks: how do you get this built, how do you define the product, how do you do the network architecture?

That is sounding like some of the things at the very least that Minister Conroy—good on you!—has shot home to the implementation study. It sounds suspiciously like, if nothing else, the minister’s promise that the implementation study will work through the detailed network design for the NBN. Mike Quigley of NBN Co. says the NBN Co. study will look at:

... how do you get this built ... how do you do the network architecture?

Why are Australian taxpayers—Australian mums and dads—presumably paying twice for the same thing? They are paying once through an implementation study that they might not even see and paying a second time through a study being done by NBN Co. We have not got an implementation study, yet we have got a trial rollout in places across the country and we have got the National Broadband Network rollout in Tasmania well advanced before any of these critical questions have been answered, presumably by the implementation study.

Trial NBN Co. rollouts to five locations across Australia might seem like action, but it is a bandaid look for action, covering over the lack of action on the NBN more broadly and proceeding before the minister surely has the critical advice on how the NBN should take shape. The Adam Max wireless broadband project in Adelaide sounds like a great idea. It is covering black spots, it is co-sponsored by the South Australian government, but it is papering over the lack of services that are due to be delivered by the NBN, if it delivers anything at all.

We have not got an implementation study. What have we got? We have got lots of megabucks being paid to NBN Co. CEO, Mike Quigley, and the minister’s mate, Mike Kaiser. There have been lots of megabucks and not one new megabit. What have we got? We have no implementation study but plenty of questions from the government’s own experts. Watch those experts, Minister, because they can turn on you if you do not heed their advice. Reg Coutts is a member of the government’s expert panel. You know that report, Minister, the one that you have not shown us yet either. Professor Coutts said in the media recently:

There has been worryingly little discussion of how the 10 per cent of the population not covered by the fibre network will get their broadband.

Professor Coutts went on to say:

I and many of the community are frustrated at the lack of progress in planning services for the 10 per cent who are beyond the NBN footprint. I do not understand why it has generated so little discussion, either in industry or in the community.

Be careful, Minister, who you pick because they can turn if you fail to heed their advice. The minister has repeatedly shoved aside the critical answers to the critical questions in his now all but infamous implementation study. In Senate estimates, when asked when and how the government will respond to the implementation study, the minister said:

As I have said, we are due to receive it by the end of February and then we will consider it.

Minister, February has come, February has gone and March is on the march. Where is your implementation study?