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

I move:

That the committee agree to the amendments made by the House of Representatives.

In doing that, can I thank those opposite, including the shadow minister, for allowing a speedy passage of this bill. It is an important bill. Without it, as I said yesterday, one of the key government commitments from the election—the rollout of the fibre-to-the node network—would have stalled.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do we have it already?

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

Perhaps you are about to be rescued, Senator Coonan. I was perhaps even looking forward to a healthy discussion with you, but Senator Brandis is almost as much fun as you!

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nobody is as much fun as you, Senator Conroy!

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

Thank you. And I see Senator Ronaldson has joined us. I welcome the participation. The government is pressing ahead with its agenda. The $4.7 billion that we are considering putting in to facilitate the rollout of the National Broadband Network demonstrates the Rudd government’s commitment to investment in infrastructure vital for Australia’s long-term prosperity. The government is moving quickly to fulfil its election commitments. This government recognises that bidders will need access to relevant network information to prepare proposals on an equal footing.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That expression must stick in your throat, Senator Conroy: the Rudd government.

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

Are you enjoying the Nelson opposition, Senator Brandis?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s magnificent!

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

That is why my department is working with carriers to achieve a voluntary outcome for the provision of the data that is required. Is ‘Turnbull opposition’ more to your fancy, Senator Brandis? Telstra has recently provided some information voluntarily which my department is currently reviewing. However, the government’s view, as I have indicated, remains that it is important to have a legislative framework in place. The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network) Bill 2008 provides a mechanism for providing potential proponents with access to relevant information so they can put forward robust proposals for the competitive assessment process.

We did consider the opposition’s amendments and we appreciate that they were put forward—certainly some of them in good faith—but we believe they were technically flawed and unnecessary because they were already covered by a number of government amendments. Furthermore, they do not appear to guarantee the provision of sufficient information voluntarily. Ours were not drafted by Telstra and Mallesons, so we are confident that they will actually stand up to scrutiny. Unlike the opposition, the government is committed to ensuring potential proponents have access to the necessary information required to prepare competitive bids. We welcome the indication from those opposite that they will not insist upon their amendments and, to speed the journey, I will wrap up there unless I need to respond to comments from the opposition.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I assume that Senator Allison is listening and that she may want to make a contribution on that, given that it has come on at fairly short notice. I would hope that if her office is listening they will advise her of that so that she can come down and make a contribution. She did not have the opportunity yesterday because of time constraints imposed by the minister and his inability to properly handle this matter. So, Senator Allison, if you are listening, I hope you have the opportunity to come down.

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

Senator Conroy interjecting—

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy, I need to listen to Senator Ronaldson, please. It is very important.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was actually going to talk about some other things but, given the interjection from Senator Conroy and his comments, I will actually do something else. I will now read the comments from Mr Billson, in the other place, in relation to the minister. Having been invited to do so by him, I will actually accommodate that. Thank you very much for the invitation to do so. I will read the comments from Mr Billson, the member for Dunkley, the shadow minister in the other place:

This is the same minister who, this morning, rang me to see if we would again bail him out of trouble, as we did in the Senate yesterday, when the minister and his government could not get the government’s own amendments considered in the time available.

I am just waiting for some figures at the moment, but there was an hour and 20 minutes on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2008, apart from anything else. We are just getting some figures now to see what government business there was on Tuesday, which you, Minister, could quite actively have used to facilitate this process but, because of your total inability to manage your portfolio, you could not do so and you could not even get amendments in until Tuesday night. I will continue with Mr Billson’s comments:

He throws himself on the opposition and says, ‘Please, please rescue me from this disaster I have created.’

They are your words, Minister: ‘Please, please rescue me from this disaster I have created.’ I continue:

He rang me again this morning and said, ‘I expect you will characterise my phone call, Bruce, as begging, grovelling and gagging.’ Yes, he is absolutely right. We gave an undertaking to have this bill passed in this place by 11 o’clock so that it could get back to the Senate to be dealt with. And guess what? The minister has missed another deadline. He could not even deliver on that timeframe we had accommodated for him in another act of constructive and helpful engagement in this process. This is more about saving Stephen Conroy from himself. This is too important to leave to this minister who is making error after error after error.

We have seen, I think, six items of government business already transacted here this morning. So urgent was this that the minister put out the most ridiculous press statement yesterday having a go at me—

that is, Bruce Billson—

and the coalition for rescuing him from his own incompetence. Is there no end to the gall of this man? Does he think running the government is like some factional deal where you just muscle up and ignore the truth? Come on, Minister! He is having a go at us for actually facilitating the process that he could not organise for himself.

So, Minister, you not only had the opportunity to do something about this on Tuesday; you had the opportunity to do something about this yesterday. You also had the opportunity to put this bill in before the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2008where there was an hour and 20 minutes that you could have used for this. And you sit there with that stupid look on your face thinking that this is all a bit of a joke. Well, Minister, I can tell you that no-one out there actually thinks this is a joke. The only thing in this process that they think is a joke is you and your behaviour in relation to this process—and I think the description of the phone calls with Mr Billson quite actually reflect this.

We put to you a constructive approach to making this bill better, to save you, Minister, from yourself—to save you from a politically motivated time frame imposed by you to meet imperatives for your own job. But you would not even accept that. Minister, you will not even take the advice of the carriers. Did you pick up the phone to speak to the industry about your amendments or our amendments to see whether this process could be facilitated? No, you did not. You did not even bother speaking to the people that you are expecting to participate in this process about whether these amendments did or did not assist this incredibly stupid, short time frame that you have imposed. You would have thought that a minister who had some interest in all this might have done that to see whether the process could be facilitated. Mr Billson went on:

The time available was not enough to deal with the government’s own amendments, but then when our amendments were universally recognised in the telecommunications community as a vast improvement on what the government was offering he got cranky about that.

The minister got cranky about this whole thing, because the minister knows that he has completely and utterly bastardised this process. He has not been able to organise in this chamber a discussion of this matter.

It was No. 7 in the House of Representatives today. Yesterday we were running around making phone calls to the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, the Leader of the Government in the Senate and Senator Conroy trying to facilitate a process, due to this ‘urgency’ to get it out of here and across to there last night. But where was it today in the House of Representatives? It was about No. 7. And, again, there was another phone call from Senator Conroy to Mr Billson—whose actions in relation to this bill should be a salutary lesson to every minister who is sitting across the other side of the chamber here and in the other place. Mr Billson has genuinely tried to assist with this process. He has genuinely tried to assist this minister and has tried to save this minister from himself.

I could go through the comments that others have made about Senator Conroy’s interest in his portfolio but I will not do so, because I will not be playing the sorts of games that he has been playing over the last 24 hours—but I am happy to accommodate that if that is what he would like me to do. I will go on with the comments from Mr Billson:

There is a reason the minister does not know the mood of the telecommunications community: he does not talk to them. It was up to the opposition to discover that there had secretly been some government amendments dropped out there—

which happened to be Tuesday night—

There was no notification to us.

Was there any discussion with the industry? Mr Billson continues:

He did not consult anybody. If he had, he would have known that there is considerable support right across the telecommunications community, across the users of these services and across policymakers and analysts for the actions the opposition has taken.

There was not even a courtesy extended to the Leader of the Democrats to discuss these amendments. The Democrats spokesperson on this matter was not even given the courtesy of a phone call from this uninterested minister to discuss these amendments. If that is the consultation that business groups and community groups can expect from this government over the—hopefully, short—period of time that they will be here, they will deserve what they get.

I would not normally be standing up here supporting the Democrats, but I thought Senator Allison’s behaviour and approach yesterday deserved a lot more praise than you gave, Minister. You effectively treated her with contempt by not briefing her and then leaving her in a position where she had literally 20 seconds to discuss these matters. If that is the way that you want to approach this chamber, that is entirely up to you. But I do not think it is right, and I do not think that people would expect the minor parties to be treated in such a way. Mr Billson went on to say:

But he would not know that because, just as he did not call the opposition about their amendments and did not consult anybody about them, he certainly did not consult any of the key stakeholders that these amendments are aimed at. So the press release that came out yesterday accusing us of slowing up the process when we saved his bacon is just more of the hubris we expect from this minister.

…            …            …

This is a bill that got dropped into the Senate on the second last day it sat, which sat around in the Senate yesterday and the day before when they did other things that were thought to be more important. The minister then claimed that we were holding up the bill because we were facilitating the debate on it, and now it is here in the House a day later.

I have three or four minutes left.

I just want to say to the minister, through the chair: why you chose to adopt this process and this attitude, quite frankly, is completely and utterly lost on us. It is lost on the minor parties. It is lost on the industry. It is lost on us why, when you had an imperative that we acknowledge was an election promise, when you knew the magnitude of the task, when you knew that you and your department did not have the information you required to make this process open and transparent, when you were given the opportunity to do that, you have chosen to take out the sledgehammer, to blame everyone else for your inability to drive this process appropriately. The turning point yesterday was when you foolishly, in my view, rather than engaging and rather than accommodating a process where amendments could be appropriately debated, chose to take the one course of action that debased your bona fides in relation to this debate—and that was your decision to try and blame the opposition, the minor parties and everyone else for holding this up.

I might be wrong, but, if there is an example in the last three years where the then Labor opposition tried to facilitate the process of legislation and of a bill as we have done through shadow minister Billson, I would be very, very surprised. If the view is that it is appropriate to effectively abuse the goodwill of the shadow minister, both in the other place and here, then that is ultimately a choice, Minister, that you will make. I have been around for a fair while, as most people would be aware. Why someone in your position would choose, when you were given a very, very substantial olive branch, to play a bit of cheap politics with it is, quite frankly, something that I will not and do not understand. Why you went down that path, I am not entirely sure.

Quite frankly, there were a number of matters that I wanted to talk about with our sensible amendments yesterday. You know, Minister, and I know, and everyone who was in the chamber knows, that we facilitated that process—whereby I did not speak to those amendments—to assist you, Minister, to get it out of this place and into the other place. And, us having assisted you to do that, you then put out a press release attacking us for holding this process up. Then we got to that other place this morning and there were six matters that went before this. You then rang the shadow minister and said: ‘Help me out. Again, can you help us out with this?’

If that is the sort of bipartisanship you want in relation to the future conduct of these sorts of things, that is okay. We have been prepared to play ball on this because we think the issue is bigger than politics. But, quite frankly, the view of the shadow minister is that you have put politics above good public policy with this, and your behaviour has detracted from what should be a sensible and reasonable outcome. You can smile and laugh and giggle about it—that is okay. We actually think it is important, and we have facilitated this process. We do not agree with your amendments—we think our amendments were good amendments—but we are not going to stand in the way of this process, because, as you know and we know, if it were to go any further than today it would make it incredibly difficult for this process to go through in an appropriate sense that would give anyone any confidence— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

Resolution reported; report adopted.