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

I was talking earlier on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009 about the reduction in shareholder value and that the claim that this is going to destroy shareholder value has been firmly—

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

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

I find it absolutely amazing that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, who is scrambling for his political life on the back of the NBN—

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

Do the teapot again!

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

You could not deliver a cup of tea, Senator Conroy, and the NBN is going to be your downfall because you cannot deliver it—and your political life is just going down the gurgler, my friend, slowly but very surely. The fact that the Telstra share price went up by 7c today is clear evidence that the market believes this bill is bad for shareholders. If mum and dad investors had had the opportunity to make a decision about whether they would or would not remain Telstra shareholders, that would have been an entirely different debate. What you have done to them is to put in place legislation that did not come before this parliament beforehand and was not part of your election promises. Indeed, everything Senator Conroy said is contrary to what has been done in this legislation. This is utterly deceitful. The government’s behaviour in this matter has been deceitful. You are using Telstra but, more importantly, you are using 1.4 million shareholders, mum and dad investors, in a public company—

Debate interrupted.