Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, if I could. Another couple of minutes would be helpful.

Leave granted.

I just want to point out that because the Liberals allowed foreign ownership in Telstra, as they wanted, the biggest shareholder is now the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. It is by far and away the biggest shareholder. J.P. Morgan, United States; Citigroup, United States; BNP Paribas, France—these are some of the major shareholders. All the rest are less than one per cent, with one little, tiny exception of four per cent. So Telstra's completely owned by foreigners, and the major and dominant shareholder is China. That's a wonderful outcome! Is there a single person in this country that would agree with the Liberal Party on this? Maybe four of their moronic followers would. And the Labor Party needn't look cute, because they were involved in the sale of Telstra. Now the ownership of your communications systems, which is, outside of water, the most important essential service in this country, is dominated by China.

In light of those things, I can't stop you from doing that. The Australian people will slaughter you in the next election and then they'll slaughter the Liberals in the election after that, and it'll just keep going on until we on the crossbenches get the power, and that is rapidly happening of course. I moved this amendment, which would provide a universal service obligation. The government has officially informed me that it's 'all under control and they're looking at it'. Well, that's a standard joke, isn't it? Those sorts of comments are what we crack jokes about. We've moved that here and we intend to divide the House on the issue.

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