Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition is totally opposed to Labor’s attempt to force the break-up of Telstra through this legislation. We urge the Senate to join us in opposing it. The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009 is, of course, a distraction. Labor’s attempt to force the break-up of Telstra is a distraction. It is a distraction from Labor’s failure to deliver on their pre-election promise to roll out the National Broadband Network. Labor are pursuing a political strategy to develop an excuse. When they go to the people at the next election they want to be able to say, ‘If only this legislation had passed. If only this obstructionist Senate had not stopped us from passing this disgraceful piece of legislation then we would have of course been able to deliver all of the things that we promised you before the last election.’ That is what this is all about.

This minister has been completely incompetent in managing the communications portfolio and, in particular, in managing the delivery of the pre-election commitment to roll out the National Broadband Network. If I were the minister I would start looking over my shoulder and listening for the steps of Minister Greg Combet down the corridor. No doubt the time will come when the Prime Minister will have no choice but to go back to Minister Combet and get him to sort out yet another failed portfolio in his government.

There is a view that some parts of this legislation are good initiatives, that some parts of this legislation would be good for rural and regional Australia. However, the problem is that the things in this legislation that are bad are so bad, and they are so bad for rural and regional Australia. The way the break-up of Telstra is proposed to proceed under this legislation is so bad that this legislation cannot possibly be supported. I say to people in rural and regional Australia that they cannot trust what the Rudd Labor government promise to deliver for rural and regional Australia. They have a very bad track record when it comes to rural and regional Australia.

I just remind people across rural and regional Australia that it was the Rudd Labor government which abolished the $2.4 billion Communications Fund which was established by the coalition for telecommunications upgrades in rural and regional Australia. It was this government that cancelled the $2 billion Opal project, which would have seen fast and affordable broadband services delivered throughout underserved rural and regional areas this year. And it is, of course, this government, the Rudd Labor government, which is winding back the Australian broadband guarantee program, which provides for subsidised services for Australians living in underserved areas. If the government had only proceeded with our plan, rural and regional Australia would have fast and affordable broadband now. But no. For purely political reasons and pride the minister is intent on going down a path that now leaves rural and regional Australia, along with the rest of Australia, sold short. It is a path that, if he had given it any thought or consideration, or if he had listened to the advice that was provided to him at the time, he would have avoided.

Of course, the government’s plan has been widely condemned. I make the point that was made by previous speakers: this is a plan that was put together on the back of a beer coaster or envelope—a $43 billion commitment of taxpayers’ money with no proper business plan and no proper process. Labor’s attempt to roll out the National Broadband Network and the way this legislation has been handled by the government so far has been roundly condemned. I will read a few extracts from some comments that have appeared in the press in recent times. On 8 August last year, Rachel Hewitt in the Herald Sun wrote:

It will take at least 18 years for most Australian homes to be connected to the Rudd Government’s National Broadband Network, according to financial services giant Goldman Sachs JBWere.

In Communications Day, on page 1 on 9 September 2009, it said:

The National Broadband Network is about as risky as it gets for potential investors … and is ‘lacking in any measure of financial or commercial rigour’.

A few weeks later Communications Day said:

Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union national president Ed Husic was concerned that the new bill had been crafted with very little engagement with unions. ‘Frankly, from our perspective, the Government could have done a lot better on consultation.’

An article from Petroc Wilton, also in Communications Day, said:

According to an AAP report—

I note that our friends from AAP, as always, are in the gallery with us today—

the Australian Shareholders Association decried the proposal as lacking a single positive aspect from a shareholder’s perspective—

there are 1.4 million shareholders across Australia, overwhelmingly mum-and-dad investors, who are going to be seriously impacted by this sort of terrible legislation that has been put forward by the government—

forecasting nothing but pain for Telstra stock owners should the bill pass into law.

I think it’s a giant kick in the teeth for Telstra shareholders; it severely damages the earnings potential of the company and there’s really not one—

positive thing in it. Here is another headline, ‘Rudd playing Ned Kelly with Telstra’, an article by Peter Swan. It says:

We rightly denigrate corrupt communist officials when we see instances of this.

I am quoting. These are not my words; these are the words of Peter Swan. He continues:

Australians believe in fair play, so much so that our forefathers enshrined the right to just compensation for expropriation in section 51 of the Australian Constitution.

But what happens if the asset in question is not a $5 million generator in China but is worth tens of billions of dollars, is here in Australia, right now, and is owned by hundreds of thousands of mum and dad investors.

          …            …            …

The $43 billion scheme was launched with no business plan to speak of and no costings beyond the back of an envelope.

Stephen Conroy’s announcement of ‘historic reforms to telecommunications regulation’ is actually a monumental admission of incompetence, failure and both policy and regulatory weakness. In other, plainer words, it’s a total crock ...

I do not think it can be put any stronger than that. Just reflect on the way this so-called National Broadband Network plan was put together. In those days there was a series on the ABC called The Hollowmen. I am sure senators will remember it. Sadly, the series is not running right now. There is a particular episode that I remember well. There were a couple of ‘hollowmen’—a couple of advisors—standing in front of a whiteboard and they were trying to come up with a plan. The question was: does it have the wow factor? When you stand back, does it have political bang? Is it going to be properly received? I can just imagine Senator Conroy and the Prime Minister sitting in a plane with the proverbial whiteboard somewhere there in the Prime Minister’s suite in his VIP aircraft. They put $5 billion on the whiteboard. ‘Does it have the ‘wow’ factor? Nah, not good enough. Ten billion dollars? Nah. Twenty billion dollars—are we getting closer? Forty billion dollars? Oh yeah—wow! Forty billion dollars is good, but it looks too much like a figure grabbed out of the air; let’s make it $43 billion so it looks like there is some science behind it.’ Straight out of the ABC script—how to put a package together. It is not serious.

Whenever commentators or indeed senators or stakeholders across Australia have questions of this government about the lack of seriousness in what they have put forward, the response is: it will all be in the implementation study. It will all be revealed; never you worry. We know that the government received the implementation study last month. Now that all the answers are going to be revealed, does the government share them with us? No. They are being kept secret. I ask the question that I have asked in this chamber before: what has the government got to hide? If all of the answers are there, if the implementation study is going to show us how this can be realistically delivered, if the implementation study is able to show us how this $43 billion expenditure of taxpayers’ money is a sensible spending of taxpayers’ money, why would the minister not walk into this chamber today and say, ‘Here it is. You have asked us about x, y, and z: here is the answer. You have been concerned about this, that and whatever; here are the answers’? Why would the minister not do it if he had nothing to hide?

The reality is that they have not been serious right from the start. As far as the break-up of Telstra is concerned, the government have never taken it to the Australian people. The structural separation of Telstra is a pretty significant change, with 1.4 million shareholders, 30,000 employees as well as all the families associated with that directly impacted. This is going to have some serious implications for a lot of working families, dare I say, across Australia. Yet did the Rudd government take the Australian people into their confidence before the last election about what they were planning to do and say, ‘We are planning to take billions of dollars off the value of your asset when we get into government’? No, they absolutely did not.

Here we have a circumstance where the government did not put this proposition to the Australia people, so they do not have a mandate and they cannot claim a mandate. They have put a plan together on the back of an envelope without any seriousness whatsoever, and they are keeping the implementation study secret, yet they are saying to us, ‘Take us on trust. Trust us; we are from the government; we are here to help.’ I say to the Senate that we cannot take this government on trust. This government has done nothing over the last 2½ years that would lead us to believe that we can take it on trust when it comes to major expenditure of taxpayers’ money. Just look no further than the absolute debacle that was the $2½ billion Home Insulation Program. If they cannot give $2½ billion away in free home insulation without creating all sorts of issues that have been well documented, then how can we trust them with this? We are spending $43 billion just like that, sight unseen.

Last week we heard Minister Conroy, along with a conga line of failed Labor ministers, whinge and complain about so-called Senate obstruction. It was quite incredible theatre that was being played out last week and it is, no doubt, part of the government’s pre-election strategy. Everything that is happening right now has to be judged against the background of a government totally focused on its re-election and not focused on the national interest. Here we have a government whingeing, moaning and sulking about so-called Senate obstruction. The Senate is here to protect the Australian people from bad government, from bad legislation like this and, of course, from incompetent ministers who want to strip billions of dollars, without any proper explanation and without any proper process, off the value of an asset many people across Australia own.

I say to the minister: if you want to go out there again and complain about the activities of the Senate, just think about it. As legislators we have a responsibility to support good legislation but to vote against bad legislation which is not in the national interest. That is what this process is all about. Sometimes what happens in this chamber will actually force the government back to the drawing board and the government will see the light, negotiate improvements and come up with a better way forward. We have seen some examples of that over the last 2½ years. Then there is some legislation which is so bad or where the government is not prepared at all, for ideological or other reasons, to entertain any change whatsoever. If we are in a circumstance where the government presses ahead, no matter what the view of the Senate is, then of course we are going to vote against it, and so we should. We are elected to do a job. We are elected to scrutinise legislation that the government puts forward, whether the government likes it or not.

I well accept that governments of all persuasions do not like it when they do not get their way in the Senate. But there are two different ways of dealing with that. Either you sit in the corner and sulk and throw your hands up in the air because you cannot do anything, or you actually engage and accept the important role of the Senate, you accept that there is a responsibility in the Senate to scrutinise government legislation, you accept that we have all been properly elected to do a job and you engage with the Senate in a discussion on how legislation can be improved or whether there is any prospect at all of the legislation ever getting up. Quite frankly, why is the government wasting so much time with legislation which falls into the category of ‘will never get the support of this Senate’? We have had weeks and weeks spent on the flawed emissions trading scheme legislation and we have had weeks and weeks of debate on Labor’s broken promise on the private health insurance rebate. We have now spent quite some time on this legislation. They can argue until they are blue in the face, but the government know that the position is so intractable that there is absolutely no prospect that we will ever be supporting it. What are they doing? Other than whingeing, sulking and trying to set themselves up for a campaign in the lead-up to the next election where they are going to use the Senate as an excuse for why they have not delivered on all of their election promises, what is the government actually doing about it?

I read something today that quite astonished me. I do not expect this Prime Minister to meet with us but I would have expected him to have the occasional meeting with crossbench senators. I was astonished to read a transcript today that said that Senator Bob Brown has not had a face-to-face meeting with the Prime Minister in six months. I was astonished to read that the Prime Minister has not had a face-to-face meeting with Senator Xenophon in 12 months. This government is all talk and no action. They are out there whingeing, complaining, sulking, pointing the finger, blaming everybody else and blaming a Senate that is doing its job. What are they actually doing about it? Nothing. It is like the bus that I have spoken about before. They are sitting in the bus which is now the ‘let’s break up Telstra’ bus and they are driving it towards the wall. Rather than apply the brakes or turn the bus around they just accelerate. They are intent on driving that bus into the wall, again and again, no matter what happens to the 1.4 million Telstra shareholders who are on the bus with them.

This is not a way to run a government. This not a way to properly manage public policy and public administration. The people across Australia should be appalled that their government is operating this way. The people across Australia should be grateful that we have a Senate that, again and again, is holding this government to account, scrutinising bad government legislation, forcing improvements to those bills that can be improved and voting down bad government legislation which clearly cannot be improved and which is not in the national interest.

The government should give us one simple reason why we should not see a copy of that implementation study. Given the fact that there has been no business plan, given the fact that what the government is proposing to do here has not been part of a pre-election debate and given the fact that there has been no appropriate scrutiny of both the proposal on the table and the flow-on implications of it, why would the government not put forward and table today a copy of the implementation study? That could be a circuit breaker. The Rudd government could start a new era late in its first and, hopefully, final term. It could follow through on the commitment it made before the last election of increased transparency and accountability. It could come into this chamber and say, ‘Okay, we’ve seen the light, we understand what you’re saying, we understand that we are spending $43 billion of taxpayers’ money without a proper business plan, without giving you a look at any of the documentation that would demonstrate the flow-on consequences and the way we are proposing to manage the risks associated with what comes out of this bill, but we understand that you cannot possibly make a decision without having access to that.’ That would be a sensible and responsible course of action from a government that is prepared to properly engage with the Senate. But looking at the performance of this government over the last week, sending out five ministers complaining about an obstructionist Senate, having the Prime Minister out there shouting, ‘Get out of my way!’ is not the way a constructive government engages with its parliament. And whether the Rudd Labor government likes it or not, the Senate is an integral part of the legislative process in Australia. That is the way it was intended by our forefathers in the Constitution, it is a job we were elected to do, it is the job the Australian people expect us to do and we will continue to do it.