Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Telstra and telecommunications generally is not an area of involvement in which I have spent a great deal of time in the last seven or eight years, although it is one of those areas I do have a nodding familiarity with, having had some frontbench responsibilities for it a long time ago—before most people in this chamber came into this chamber—between 1998 and 2001. In those days a long discussion went on about a range of telecommunications matters. I do not want to visit the subject of those discussions and those debates long past, because those were the long, lonely, weary days of the Howard government when there was a range of matters rammed through time and time again. I do remember in those days when we sat on those terrible hard benches over there that there were protracted debates on a range of topical issues of the day. I remember there was a clear distinction. I remember now, having watched this debate for the last five to six hours today, a clear distinction and a clear difference in approach between—