Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers given today by Ministers Conroy and Wong, and in particular Minister Conroy’s answer to Senator Minchin when he had the cheek to suggest that the government’s legislation today gives Telstra choice. Minister Conroy had the cheek to suggest that today’s legislation gives Telstra choice to structurally separate or not, or else ‘We’ll do it for you.’ That is the choice: Telstra can choose to cooperate with the government or ‘We will do it for you.’ The government says the only choice left open to Telstra is to cooperate so that the government can, says Minister Conroy, deliver equivalence of access and equivalence of service to the National Broadband Network so that everybody will get the same and nobody will be worse off. That sounds a bit like a promise made elsewhere by this government: no worker will be worse off, no business will be worse off—for example, with its award modernisation program. It is the same sort of promise with the same sorts of underpinnings: no analysis to prove that the promise is deliverable, when there is the same competition between supply and demand.

In saying to Telstra, ‘Choose to cooperate,’ what is the government saying to Telstra’s workers in the face of warnings from the Telstra workers’ union, the CPSU, that Telstra’s workers face competing supply and demand sides of the equation? Is the government really saying to Telstra’s workers, ‘You won’t be worse off through this’? The CPSU says that not only do Telstra’s workers need their award conditions transferred to the government if Telstra structurally separates, in order to ensure that workers are not worse off, but there is a double-sided hit for Telstra’s workers in structural separation, because Telstra’s workers are also Telstra’s shareholders in many cases. So what is the promise that the government is making to Telstra’s workers?

The government and Minister Conroy know this game. Minister Conroy knows why he can have the cheek to suggest that Telstra has a choice—‘choose to cooperate’—because it is the same so-called choice that the government has foisted upon every other participant, every other stakeholder and would-be participant in the National Broadband Network. It is silencing them with the process of having them hope that they will be able to participate in the process. It is saying: choose to cooperate and we will look after you; choose to not cooperate and we will do it without you.

Experts talk about the National Broadband Network as the biggest infrastructure spend ever. Mark McDonnell, an analyst at BBY, said:

... few analysts have been moved to describe it as a rational investment proposal.

When it comes to risk, this is about as high risk as it gets.

... lacking in any measure of financial or commercial rigour.

How does a government get away with no cost benefit analysis for the biggest infrastructure spend ever? There is no cost benefit analysis to show who will want this thing, how they will get it or whether they will be prepared to pay for it. There is no analysis from the government. On the other side of the coin, there is no indication to consumers as to who will get what, when they will get it, where they will get it, how they will get it and what price they will be required to pay for it. No, no—we have a government confident to make promises because it knows it is able to silence the would-be and should-be critics by a supposed choice: choose to cooperate or not.