John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to join the member for Franklin in supporting this motion. I am hoping the debate will not be as rancorous as the one we had on the last subject in this chamber. I would like to add the voice of the hardworking people of Mallee in objecting to the strong-arm tactics being used, particularly by Telstra as the major telecommunications provider in Australia. The proposal to add the cost of $2.20 to each account payment not remitted electronically has not gone down well at all amongst my constituents.

Over the years, as a member of parliament you get used to reading what will be an immediately significant issue. The phone switchboard lights up and the emails start flooding in when people take a strong objection to things that are done and they want to let their member of parliament know how they feel. There have been hundreds of emails on this subject. In fact, on this issue my office has had to implement some special monitoring to ensure that each complainant is registered so that I can get back to them.

I am hoping that Telstra will recant this announcement. It certainly was extremely poorly handled by them. You would think that a prestigious organisation like Telstra would have access to better public relations sources than have been demonstrated by this announcement. The problem with Telstra’s approach on this issue is their vested interest. Forcing their customers to use electronic means by enforcing an account management fee if they do not, when Telstra also own that electronic resource and will earn the revenue which will come from the increased use of it, clearly declares their conflict of interest and is anticompetitive. The motion calls for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to take an interest in this. I hope they are. It is one thing for Telstra to say it will save them costs, but it is another thing when they force customers to use services which they have the majority ownership of and hence will receive monetary benefit from.

The way that this announcement was made was very disappointing. It has been hard to establish the facts on what Telstra now say are exemptions for people on social security benefits and the like. I cannot believe that Telstra missed a golden opportunity here. Instead of this big stick approach, if their assertion is that their collection costs are prohibitive, why not use a carrot? Why not offer a discount for the use of electronic services for the payment of accounts? That would create an incentive for people. Any loss of revenue as a result could clearly be taken up by what they allege to be their extra costs of collection through conventional means. This is an approach that has legitimacy if Telstra are genuine in their claim to be incurring unacceptable costs for the conventional payment of accounts.

I also do not accept explanations from Telstra that low- and fixed-income customers will be exempt. It has been like extracting hen’s teeth to get advice out of Telstra about these exemptions. The fact that pensioners and welfare recipients will be exempt took too long to establish. Even then, the position was not clear. I have one particular example. Representations were made by my office to clear up the issue of how this would affect those people who are on an age pension but have no fixed loan account, only a mobile phone account. They were not to have exemptions. Telstra had not thought that through. I am advised that they are prepared to recant that somewhat, but in the next month or so of remittance of accounts we will see what Telstra’s real intention is. Then there is the position of self-funded retirees who are of an age where they do not want to be bothered with the internet. People in their 70s do not want to be bothered with the use of electronic gadgets or even the phone. What is the position for them? Will they be exempted as well? It is not clear.

This is very arrogant behaviour by Telstra. It is not too late for them to recant this outrageous measure. I am very disappointed at this approach by one of the nation’s largest corporate citizens. If they wanted to save administration costs—and I will repeat what my constituents repeatedly advise me, and representations are still coming in—then they should focus on what they paid their CEO. He was paid far more than he was worth and far more than the alleged savings of this outrageous measure. I support the motion and the request implied in it for detailed examination of this matter. I appeal once more publicly to Telstra to recant. (Time expired)

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