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

The one thing that became very clear from Senator Conroy’s answers today is that there is in fact no deal between Telstra and NBN Co. to deliver a national broadband network. In fact, Minister Conroy refused to guarantee that there would be a deal this side of the election. This is yet another example of the Rudd Labor government’s ‘all talk and no action’—the ‘spin over substance’ approach to government. We have a Prime Minister under pressure. We have a Prime Minister who is worried about every single Newspoll. We have a Prime Minister who is worried about tomorrow’s caucus meeting. So he was desperate to bring out some positive news. Then what do they do? They come out and present this deal to try and do a deal as if it is this historic achievement. We had Senator Conroy here in the chamber today describing this thing as historic and saying that it is going to take Australia into a new era with delivering fast broadband. It will deliver nothing of the sort. This is all talk and no action.

I need to point no further than to the letter which was issued to Telstra shareholders by Telstra today. It had two very significant parts to it. Firstly:

… a very significant amount of work must still be done on many complex issues …

Further:

… there can be no guarantee—

that the deal—

will progress to completion.

Only later does it say that should a final agreement be reached then it would have to be put to a shareholder vote in the first half of the calendar year 2011.

Senator Conroy was trying to suggest today that of course there was no final deal because it is not going to be put to a vote of shareholders until early next year. Well, Telstra is not going to even put it to a meeting of shareholders unless it has a deal with the government, and so far there is no deal. The only thing we have is a deal to try and do a deal. The second thing we have is a government committing $9 billion of taxpayers’ money to get Telstra essentially to shut down part of its existing business, and another $2 billion in value for Telstra, courtesy of the taxpayer, by the government committing a hundred million taxpayer dollars every year to fund the universal service obligation. This has never been funded by the taxpayer. It has always been funded by the telecommunications companies themselves.

So here we have the Rudd Labor government true to form. What do they do whenever they are faced with a problem? They just throw taxpayers’ money at it. It is a case of reckless spending left, right and centre—which is of course why they have to come up with yet another tax grab in every single budget. This is a high-spending, high-taxing, high-levels-of-debt, bad, old-fashioned Labor government. The Prime Minister knows now that the election is getting closer and closer, even though he was trying to suggest on The 7.30 Report last week that it could be as late as March or April next year. This is a Prime Minister who knows that people across Australia are angry with him. He knows that people are very disappointed by his lack of performance. They are very disappointed in the failure and incompetence that has been delivered by this Rudd Labor government. He is a Prime Minister who is running scared of going to the next election.

The only reason that this non-deal was rolled out was that it would be in time for Newspoll. He is a desperate Prime Minister who wanted to be able to point to something positive. He wanted to have a win. He wanted to put something out there that looked as if he was actually achieving something. But, if you go past the detail, all you can see is that there is no deal at all. The only thing that people have agreed to is something they have agreed to for some time—that they will try and do a deal. But still nothing that Senator Conroy has said in Senate question time today can give the Australian people any confidence that there will be a deal between Telstra and NBN to deliver a national broadband network this side of the election. All we have had is the reconfirmation of the absolute obvious. And Senator Conroy even said, ‘Well, that is stating the absolute obvious.’ He did not use the words ‘there is no deal’ but that is what he meant, because there is no deal. All he repeated was what everybody knew—that, yes, NBN and Telstra will continue to have discussions to sort out a whole range of complex issues. But there is no guarantee it will progress to completion.

The minister says ‘if this’ and ‘if that’. Well, I hope the Socceroos win every single match between now and the World Cup final. If they do, they will be world champions, but if they do not they will not. (Time expired)