Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I listened with some degree of interest to the member for Herbert’s contribution to this debate on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008. I noted that he was having some difficulty determining whether it was Lord Howe Island or Norfolk Island; having listened to his contribution, I think he has had a visit to Fantasy Island. I can assure the member for Herbert that he is very much out of touch with the service levels that a lot of country Australians are getting. And he stood up as a proponent of regional telecommunications. I would invite him to come to an electorate which is not at the back of Bourke but within 350 kilometres of Sydney and spend some time looking at some of the issues that happen in the real world.

In the community of Yetman, on the Queensland border, for instance, they are still having difficulty getting mobile phones. The so-called Communications Fund that the member for Herbert was talking about allowed $100 million a year. Many of those communities, like Acacia Plateau, closer to Brisbane, have had proposals put to them by Telstra Country Wide—the company that the former Liberal government was more than happy to sell and where competition was going to deliver outcomes to people—whereby if they provide the land, the electricity to the land, the road to the land and the tower on the land, Telstra will look at putting an antenna on the tower. That is what this has come to: all of the promises, commitments and rubbish that were peddled about the sale of Telstra and the guarantees that were given time and time again as to what would happen, and it would all be all right. I have attended meetings at the Yetmans and the Acacia Plateaus, and I have not seen all the private providers gathered there in a competitive process to provide modern technology to country people.

The $100 million that the member for Herbert has spent time talking about tonight—and no doubt others will as well—is a pittance and was a pittance. The member for Herbert and others who were in government at the time would have known that our Constitution does not allow for one parliament to bind another parliament. They knew exactly what they were doing when this compromise—a $2 billion Communications Fund to future-proof country Australia—was put in place. More times than not they forgot to add that it was actually the interest on the $2 billion, which is probably about $100 million annually, to future-proof country Australia. The first bit of future that came along was Next G; and we have this absurd scenario being played out at the moment where people have been sold product not fit for purpose. Where has this future-proofing been in the last 12 months? What has it been doing for those people who have been sold dodgy phones, who have been sold a pup in terms of the technology that they were told would be an improvement on the technology that they had before? If there was ever a reason for the demise of the National Party, this is a classic example of it. This whole scenario really encapsulates the reason that people have walked away. Even some of the elderly, retired members and some of those who have more recently retired are walking away and agreeing to a merger with the Liberal Party.

Ninety to 95 per cent of country Australians did not want Telstra sold. So what did the National Party do? They sold it. The Page Research Centre did a survey about what would be the price of the sale. What would we need to adequately ensure that country Australians had an equitable service? It came up with $7 billion. Then the saviour of the country, Senator Barnaby Joyce, called for a $5 billion future-proofing arrangement. Eventually they settled on the interest on $2 billion, which was back to $100 million annually—or 20 years to get to the $2 billion, for something that the people they represented did not want sold in the first place. Out of a $57.7 billion asset, Australia has enjoyed the benefits of about $1.1 billion. And the member for Herbert describes what is happening today as a disgraceful thing. I think the disgrace occurred some time back.

I was at the Senate doors on the day the then President of the National Farmers Federation, Peter Corish, came out of a meeting with some of the government ministers—Mark Vaile, John Anderson and a few others—and endorsed the sale. And the National Farmers Federation wonder why they have absolutely no regard in this building! He endorsed the sale of Telstra, even though their membership, their constituency, had said no—as was the case with the National Party constituency. The reason he gave was the reason that Senator Joyce eventually gave in his support in the Senate debate at the time. The President of the National Farmers Federation, Peter Corish, said: ‘We are about delivering equity of access to country Australians, and the government has guaranteed us that it will be enshrined in legislation that there be equity of access to broadband and telephone services.’ Some hours later, the ‘champion of the bush’, Senator Barnaby Joyce, supported the sale—on the back of that promise.

That was when the damage was done, Member for Herbert. That is when the sell-out, the theft, occurred. That is when country Australians were sold out by their so-called representatives. That was the last opportunity that the National Party and, in my view, the National Farmers Federation had to purport to actually represent a constituency. Polls done in a number of electorates, including many of the then government electorates, showed opposition to the sale. In Gwydir, 81 per cent were opposed; in Parkes, 88 per cent were opposed; in Riverina, 85 per cent were opposed; in Farrer, 82 per cent were opposed; in Page, 81 per cent were opposed; in Richmond, 73 per cent were opposed; and in Cowper, 91 per cent were opposed.

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