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

My question is to Senator Coonan, the minister for communications. I refer the minister to Telstra’s plans to dramatically slash payphone services in Australia. Is the minister aware that, after privately briefing both the Liberal and the National Party caucus rooms, Telstra CEO, Mr Trujillo, made the following comments to journalists—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘You’re in my pocket’!

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

‘I think what you saw Senator Coonan say late in the week was that the company should do the things that we were doing, in terms of removing uneconomic investments.’ Since the minister conceded yesterday that the USO protects only 7,500 of Telstra’s 32,000 payphones and that Telstra should look at some rationalisation of payphones, the question is: why has the minister given the green light to the removal of up to 25,000 payphones if Telstra deems them uneconomic? Will the minister now release the list and map of Telstra’s payphone cuts?

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to Senator Conroy for the question. I was worried that Senator Conroy would not get a question through his questions committee today. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to disabuse the Senate of the assumptions implicit in Senator Conroy’s questions. There is no suggestion that 23,000 payphones were subject to being removed by Telstra.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s what you said yesterday!

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Sherry!

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. What we have in fact done is make the supply, installation and maintenance of payphones part of the universal service obligation. We have done this because we recognise that access to payphones is an important community service. It is critical that pay telephones that are subject to the universal service obligation are maintained. Payphones that are non-commercial, where I said that there are more than two in one particular location—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is too much noise on my left.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Sherry! Shouting across the chamber while a minister is trying to answer a question is totally disorderly. I ask you to come to order. It is Senator Conroy’s question and the minister is answering.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President, and thank you for—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Party might have bought this, but no-one else has!

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Carr!

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. This is an ALP question and you cannot hear the minister’s answer to their question because of their interjections. Please bring them to order.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

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

There goes that Telstra share price!

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The interesting thing about this is that Labor argues that payphones are a fall-back option for people living in rural areas if they are unable to use a mobile phone. The sad reality is that if Labor had its way payphones would be the only option people would have in rural and regional Australia. Labor would certainly have kept payphones profitable because under a Labor government that would be the only phone people would have in rural and regional areas. Under Labor, people could wait more than two years to have their home phone connected. What an absolute disgrace! Labor closed down analog mobile phones, leaving rural Australians stranded without a service at all. Labor has no real plan to connect rural and regional Australians to broadband. Under Labor, the idea of rural and regional Australians using new technologies like voice over IP would be unthinkable.

So while payphones are a very important community service, and they will be maintained where they are subject to the universal service obligation, imagine how critical they would become if Labor were in charge of regional communications. Regional Australians are not fooled by Labor on this issue. They know that if Senator Conroy had his way thousands of rural households that rely on satellite internet services would have their subsidies scrapped. Every subsidy for rural and regional Australia, according to Senator Conroy, is pork-barrelling. It is an absolute disgrace. I have a bit of free advice for Senator Conroy: if you want to find out what is going on in regional Australia, get out of your office in Melbourne and go and ask.

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

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. It is about relevance. I asked about how many phones it is that the minister has given the green light to being taken out and about when she is going to give us the hit list. That was the question. She has absolutely avoided it for the last three minutes.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you would stop interjecting and the rest of your side of politics would keep quiet you might be able to hear what she is saying and she might give you an answer. Continual interjections do not help. They certainly do not help ministers reply to questions.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a new point of order. Senator Conroy raised a point of order about the minister failing to answer the question. I do not know whether you feel intimidated by Senator Minchin’s intervention, but it was a legitimate point of order for Senator Conroy to raise and unrelated to questions of noise in the chamber—the sort of noise that we are now hearing. The reality is that it was a serious point of order about Senator Coonan talking about the Labor Party for four minutes and failing to answer a question that concerns a lot of rurally based Australians.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order, because the minister still has 51 seconds to answer the question. I remind her of the question and I remind those on my left to let us all hear the answer in some sort of quietness.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is interesting that Senator Conroy talks about a hit list. I thought the only hit list that he was interested in was branch stacking. That is why Senator Conroy wants to keep payphone boxes: so he can hold branch-stack meetings in his phone box. That is what he is doing.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, I did remind you of the question.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government is committed to looking after the needs of telecommunications in rural and regional Australia and we will make sure that where payphone boxes are needed and required they will remain.

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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister confirm that Telstra is required to maintain only 7,500 payphones throughout Australia under the USO, and is not currently able to account for hundreds of these payphones in its records? How can the universal service obligation possibly provide service guarantees for rural and regional Australia if Telstra is unable to identify its USO payphones? Given that Telstra is intent on doing the absolute minimum required for rural and regional Australia, isn’t the lack of clarity in the USO an open invitation to further slash payphone numbers? When will you table the map you have asked for? When will you table the hit list of the phones to go?

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will say this very slowly for Senator Conroy’s benefit. This government will ensure that where people need payphones they will have them. This government will ensure that where people need broadband they will get it. This government will ensure that where people need telecommunications they will have it, irrespective of where they live. There is no doubt whatsoever that payphones will be maintained under the universal service obligation. Senator Conroy really needs to go and stick to his day job of branch stacking.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.