Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

AT&T, was it? Anyhow, I know the company and at the time, because of competition issues, which are paramount in the United States, they really pay attention to them, they were instructed to break up that organisation into what became termed baby bells—little operations all working. The major company virtually ended up as the national overseas telecommunications company. And year by year by year, those baby bells got worse and worse and worse. They failed to maintain a reasonable level of pricing for the simple reason they were not big enough. And what has happened in quite recent years? They have all been re-coordinated into a single company. That is what has happened.

It is typical in this place that we always ignore history, we always ignore that this has been tried once before. Everybody who comes into this place with an original idea usually finds someone else tried it years ago. And that great free enterprise economy America, in the interest of free enterprise, believing that it would gain benefit for the consumer by breaking up this big company, has discovered it was a dog: it did not work, it has been re-amalgamated. So here we are, starting on the baby bell road, when it has been proven a failure in the most free enterprise country in the world.

That is pretty interesting, but that is not all of it. Telstra has a copper network. What does the explanatory memorandum tell us about how the government is going to steal this business without paying compensation? It is very clever.

Structural separation may, but does not need to, involve the creation of a new company by Telstra and the transfer of its fixed-line assets to that new company.

You do not have to do that, because if you legislated that you would have to pay the shareholders compensation.

Alternatively it may

Why did the draughtsman put ‘may’ in special letters? Just to make sure that the judge that tries to adjudicate on behalf of the shareholders of Telstra gets the message: ‘We were too mean and tricky to let them get a dollar back for their investment. We want to nationalise it. We want to recreate a union-dominated service and we’re not going to give you any money for it.’ So we get the word ‘may’ highlighted twice in a single paragraph.

Alternatively it may involve Telstra progressively migrating its fixed-line traffic to the NBN—

You know, ‘Mate, you don’t have to come on board. We are just going to send you broke if you don’t. But we’re not going to force you to do it.’ No! And we’re not going to worry about your shareholders—those people who thought they could trust government in Australia. The government is prepared to do the dirty on you, because it has got a secondary agenda.

Alternatively it may involve Telstra progressively migrating its fixed-line traffic to the NBN—

The major part of its business for decades is, admittedly, now being overrun by mobile phones et cetera and the new spectrum. But you are not going to get any more of that, Telstra. That puts an implicit value on your copper line traffic, which you are going to transfer to our new government company. I will wait and see who wants to join as an investor, unless they are guaranteed that they get Telstra’s network for free. Private enterprise has not been rushing to the fold to get into this new company, but you can bet they have all been round the back door and said, ‘Mate, we’re with you when you knock off Telstra.’ I will read that again:

Alternatively it may involve Telstra progressively migrating its fixed-line traffic to the NBN over an agreed period of time and under set regulatory arrangements,—

you know, we will set the rules by which you give it to us—

and sell or cease to use its fixed-line assets on an agreed basis.

I have been in business for a long time. Would I have liked to have been running this deal: I take everything you’ve got and I tell you how I will take it.

This approach will ultimately lead to a national outcome—

in other words, a national-ised outcome—

where there is a wholesale-only network not controlled by any retail company—

Exactly right: the new telecom will be controlled by the government. Who does business as a retailer without the network? And who is going to run the network, even if there is private investment—49 per cent, thank you very much. This is unbelievable stuff. Of course, those who will suffer first will be the shareholders of Telstra, and those who will suffer second will be those who believe that the government of the day will provide them with a better communications network. At some time even their mobile phones slide back into the network. They hit a tower somewhere and the tower is interconnected with the cable network. Telstra has a huge amount of cable, and some of it is involved with its Foxtel business. But this legislation says you have got to get rid of Foxtel, too. That is going to be a great help to the shareholders!

As time is starting to beat me, I want to say a couple of words about the role of the Future Fund and its chairman, Mr Murray, in this fiasco. I have never seen anything so bad. The Future Fund was given a huge block of Telstra shares for the benefit of the public servants, particularly of Canberra, particularly of the defence forces, to ensure their guaranteed superannuation on retirement. The Future Fund was one of the great initiatives of the Howard government, because the money was not there and there was evidence, because of the ageing of the population, that kids would not be able to afford it. Part of that investment was a huge block of shares. How did Murray and his mates use it? They went round and bullied the board; got rid of the directors who were fighting to protect the shareholders; and got rid of the chief executive, who happened to be leaving anyway. They have put a couple of softies in there, who apparently are going to listen more to the government and their shareholders. They ought to be sued for that. You talk about the ACCC. If they sell out their shareholders, they have broken the law.

The minister says, ‘I never talked to Murray once.’ I am not surprised. I think that is probably the truth. But who did? Who sent Murray into their boardroom to bully the directors to sack their chief executive? Who sent Murray in, as the biggest shareholder of Telstra? And what did Murray get for it? What did he get for the superannuants he is supposed to represent? He got a reduced asset. Then he flogged a chunk of it—very surprisingly!—just before all this became public. But he still has a lot of shares. They are going to be worth a lot less money, and that is going to cost the public servants and the Defence Force people a lot of superannuation guarantee in time to come. I raised this matter—if anyone goes back to the Hansarda long time ago. I could see it coming. This is a takeover. It is going to deliver a government managed fundamental network—(Time expired)

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