Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Under an arrangement announced yesterday, Australians will have the security of knowing that they will continue to have dependable access to a standard telephone service and that control over the removal of payphones and management of emergency call services and the National Relay Service will be the responsibility of an entity formed entirely to deliver these public services. Of course, the government is also committed to strengthening universal service obligations and has introduced legislation to that effect. Once again, by opposing this legislation for the sake of opposing, the opposition are putting politics ahead of consumers in this country—those same consumers they sold down the river through their ill-designed privatisation of a virtual monopolist in rural and regional areas. (Time expired)