Mr ALLAN MORRIS(7.01 p.m.) —Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl, at the outset I offer my congratulations to you, the Second Deputy Speaker and the Speaker on your elevations to your positions. We should talk a little bit about the election and what its result implies. We have heard an awful lot of nonsense and discussion about mandates. I wonder whether all Victorian members should vote against this legislation, because the majority of Victorians voted against the Liberal Party at the election. In fact, the opposition out-polled the Liberal Party in Victoria. So, on the reckoning of those opposite, all Victorian members of this House should vote with us. That seems to be the way the opposition want to play it. That is their idea about mandate. The fact is that the majority of Australians voted against the government in both houses.

I have spent some years in this chamber listening to those who are now opposite lecturing and hectoring us in government about how we had no mandate. Everything we tried to do they opposed, undermined and used their numbers in the other place. They did not come in here with the pious posturing that we are seeing now. It is absolutely amazing. But it is not surprising when you consider it is coming from honest John and his friends.

Those who are here for the first time may be a bit puzzled by this change in attitude. My friend the member for Wakefield (Mr Andrew) does not surprise me, because he has always had the capacity to be all things to all people. Now, of course, he is playing the pompous posturer. He is talking about a mandate, knowing as well as I do that he spent the years on this side of the House arguing the opposite case.

We are also hearing a massive campaign of lies. I find it amazing. The word `lies' is parliamentary. The Prime Minister (Mr Howard) used it the other afternoon on three occasions and was not stopped once by the Speaker. So I accept that the word has been used in this chamber by the leader of the government since the election with no opposition from the Speaker. He used the term quite specifically, not even generally.

The lies that have been propagated about the opposition policy and its attitudes on Telstra are mind boggling. There is the issue of the budget deficit. It is very clear that the government put forward proposals which were $4 billion short of funding. They made a promise that they would keep all their promises. They even promised that they would go into deficit rather than break those promises. That is the first promise broken.

The fact is that they are $4 billion short of funds for the policies they put forward. The Treasury estimates that have come forward are based on current government policy. The idea that Treasury costed the policies of the former government is a nonsense. They costed the current government's policies. As we have seen, those policies require a downturn. Access Economics have pointed out, as has almost every other commentator, that there will be anything from a 0.3 per cent to a 0.7 per cent drop in growth in the current year alone.

Treasury factored those estimates into the projections for the next budget, as it has to do. If it is factoring in our policies, with the accord in place and with lower wage growth, there would have been a different budget bottom line. Firstly, there is the $4 billion shortfall, which was fabricated by the opposition in terms of its costings. Secondly, the difference is made by government policies in slowing growth and increasing unemployment in the short to medium terms, and God knows for how long.

The idea that somehow they can persuade the Australian people that this country is in dreadful shape is not on. Their attempt to demonise the opposition for what they have inherited is just a joke. People out there know that inflation is low, wage growth is low and employment growth has been enormously high. They are watching very carefully now. I note with great interest that, since the election, there has been no outburst of spending by the government. In fact, it has been the opposite situation.

Going further, what the government has done to the national capital is appalling. Any government which deliberately suspends a whole city, a national capital, of this size for four months of absolute uncertainty for political gain—simply to back load the redundancy packages into the current budget—is disgraceful. What the government has done is very simple. Packages are available until 30 June for those who want to retire. The cost of those packages will be measured against the previous government's budget. This attempt to shift the budget figure in the 1995-96 budget is disgraceful and immoral.

Rather than making a decision about what they are doing, they are spreading that over four months, from now right through until budget night. So the whole of Canberra is frozen for four months. Why? Because the government want to back load a few hundred million dollars into this year's budget. That is a shabby, squalid little trick.

What about the debt question? The fact is that debts relate to assets. The issue at stake does not relate simply to the size of the debt. It also relates to the value of the asset held and to the capacity to service the debt. Does the government suggest that this generation should pay now for everything—the roads, the public utilities and infrastructure that will last for decades—in cash so that the next generation inherits all those assets without contributing towards them? Is that the idea—that somehow debt is intrinsically wrong? If so I have never heard that put forward in that way before. The government has not argued that. It did not say that during the election campaign. It has not articulated that kind of a thesis. The fact is that each generation in a society pays a share of what it uses. It is important that the assets and infrastructure we pass to future generations are in good shape—but not that they are necessarily debt-free, because the debt is part of the asset. What matters is the relationship between the value of the asset and the debt and the capacity to service that debt.

The idea that this issue is about getting the debt down is suspect. It is even more suspect because what they are going to save is the interest on the debt. What is that? Five per cent? Six per cent? Seven per cent? Eight per cent? The fact is that the $8 billion that will be gained from the sale is currently earning about 14 per cent. Why would you retire debt and save seven per cent when what you are retiring is currently earning you 14 per cent?

I remember very well the unctuous lecture from the member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) yesterday about how economically literate he was. He was trying to justify the better value of retiring the debt. He forgot the return on the asset the government wants to flog. The $8 billion asset it wants to sell will return more to the people of Australia if they own it. I have heard with great amusement the idea that somehow we should share this wonderful golden goose with all the battlers, who will all want their little share of it. The fact is that they have a share of it now, and it is earning them 14 per cent. Those opposite want to flog it off to someone else and save seven per cent. These are the economic gurus, the leading lights of the next century, who are supposed to be putting Australia on the right path.

This policy came up about 10 years ago in 1987. Those opposite have been talking about it in various forms at various times, at various elections. Suddenly it has come forward now to solve a deficit problem in the current budget. What a lot of gobbledegook. Telstra has a $15 billion a year turnover. It is a business which plays an enormously important role in this country. We have already heard that it pays $650 million a year in taxation. It is one of the genuine corporate taxpayers; it observes the spirit of the law because the government says it has to, because the government can make it do so. Take away section 3 in the legislation, under which the minister can direct Telstra to act in the national interests, and we lose the capacity to make sure it observes the spirit of corporate taxation. Telstra plays an important role as a corporate model for taxation.

Telstra pays another $300 million a year in other taxes—rates, state taxes and payroll taxes. It pays more than a billion in dividends. That is the type of organisation we are talking about—not some run-down and ineffective bureaucratic department. I mentioned earlier the role Telstra plays in corporate taxation. The member for Corio (Mr O'Connor) quoted the report of the inquiry of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology into government purchasing. The members for Indi (Mr Lieberman) and Bendigo (Mr Reid) both took part in that inquiry. We went through the various departments and the effects of government purchasing and the role played by Telstra. Telstra expects to spend about $10 billion in the next five years in Australia. Talk to the companies that Telstra buys from and they will say that without government policy pushing Telstra to do so it would not be happening. They could buy cheaper and nastier somewhere else.

Our high-tech exports have gone from about $50 million to almost $1 billion a year. Telstra has driven that. Telstra is an arm of government. It can be directed by express government policy. More than 90 per cent of its purchases are made in Australia. Seventy per cent of its high-tech purchases are made in Australia. There would be no Australian telecommunications industry if Telstra were not government owned. Go around the world and ask and you will find someone who will sell the products Telstra needs for a cheaper price. Why would a private company with a responsibility to its shareholders not buy the cheapest product? Why should it observe government policy? Of course, it cannot. When overseas, I am asked, as I am sure other members are asked, why small pockets of population are scattered all over this vast continent—on the east coast, in the west, up north.

Telstra's technology has been world class for a very long time, yet when we came to government in 1983 Telstra was not able to go overseas. We had to pass special legislation, which eventually got through in 1984. There was not much cooperation then to allow Telstra to go and sell overseas. Ericsson—the great shining light of the previous government—was established in Australia to supply to Telstra. I thought that was a wonderful thing until I went there in 1983 and discovered that Ericsson Australia was not allowed to sell outside Australasia and New Guinea. Ericsson Sweden supplied Asia, not Ericsson Australia. It was all wrong. The design and the methodology indicated the previous government's inability to understand the capacity of Telecom to drive Australian industry, to be a player in a bigger game than just the domestic scene, to project into trade. We are talking about a large, dynamic organisation that has been incredibly successful.

Let us talk about the sale of Telstra. I noticed that section 3 of the legislation, which relates to ministerial discretion to direct Telstra in the national interests, goes. In other words, under this legislation Telstra cannot be directed to act in the national interests. The price capping on its charges applies for only as long as the current disallowable instrument—that is, 1997 on the current policy. We know nothing beyond then because no policy has been articulated. It has been proposed but we are still in a vacuum.

There are some interesting words used in the legislation, which are quite meaningful when you have ministerial power to direct in the national interest the universal service obligations to ensure access to standard telephones. The key words are `on an equitable basis'. Those opposite are going to start finding out that people in Melbourne or Sydney will not think it is equitable that they are subsidising the bush. The fact is that they outnumber everybody else.

If Optus will not put cable into Dungog, why should Telstra keep cable there? Is that equitable? It is not simply a question of access to services; it is a question of the services being maintained there. Watching the withdrawal of the Commonwealth Bank, as mentioned by previous speakers, is nothing compared to Telstra because, very simply, Telstra can use mobile technology. It puts in a simple transmitter and everyone goes on to mobile phones, from which calls are timed. Time charges do not affect mobile phones.

Mr Deputy Speaker, it will be very nice in your electorate. You will have access to mobile telephones. Why keep the cables running? Why upgrade the cables? You will not need to as it is not equitable. They cannot be made to. The mobile charges that your constituents have will be the same mobile charges as the charges in Melbourne and Sydney, and so they should be. That is the answer. I do not think you people understand where technology has got to. We are looking towards a world where digital technology will be universal. It can be broadbanded and it is all timed.

The little travesty in here of a clause about timed charges is a furphy, and you know it because your advisers are not stupid. You may be technologically illiterate, but they are not. Two million Australians are already using mobile phones. By the end of the century that will have almost trebled. Once your technology has got to that level, the bush will go mobile and we will all be timed. Don't you dare suggest that I am telling lies or being misleading because that is what is going to happen and you know it.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl) —I can assure the honourable member that I will not suggest that he is telling lies. At the same time, he might address his remarks through the chair.

Mr ALLAN MORRIS —I am delighted to hear that, Mr Deputy Speaker. For those opposite to claim that they are being misrepresented is wrong. What I am suggesting now is accurate and you know it.

It is also fascinating to look at the question of foreign debt. One of the big issues of the last election was the mandate about foreign debt. Who gave you a mandate to increase it by $3 billion? That is what you have done. Your foreign sales of $2.8 billion will be by debt. You know the trick; you know the system. Establish an Australian company. It borrows from its parents offshore. It brings the money in as a loan and then buys the shares. They all do it, or haven't you noticed? That is what the foreign debt is about. It buys equity and assets through Australian companies which have borrowed off their parent company or subsidiary overseas.

It is not just the ownership of Telstra that is involved. You are about to increase foreign debt by $3 billion and you walk around the countryside talking about how dreadful we were for allowing the foreign debt to blow out when you are deliberately and consciously doing it. What kind of chicanery is that? Truth is all. Truth is absolute. This fortnight we have seen the most disgraceful display of slipping and sliding, walking away from, avoiding and misleading that I have seen in a long time from people who put to us in this chamber not many months ago that truth was absolute. I have seen very little truth in this fortnight.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I pointed out to you that those in your own constituency and those in rural and regional Australia, who I am close to, are going to be the victims of this. They are facing a shift in services. The government cannot direct Telstra to maintain a service that is no longer economically viable and where the hardware is out of date. Telstra is putting in the most modern technology available, which will be mobile technology. That is equitable, fair and accessible. It meets all the criteria and it is all timed. Who decides the rental charges? Not Telstra, but somebody else.

An unbelievable hypocritical action is going on in here. I feel a bit sorry for those opposite who have come into this parliament for the first time because they actually believe a lot of this stuff. They think that what they are being told is accurate, genuine and honest. They are in for an awful shock if this legislation gets passed. Let us debate it up and down the country. Let us go around Australia talking about this topic. I think Australians will see through you. You have no mandate. You have a mandate to govern and nothing else. If you took mandates seriously, you would have voted differently over the last 12 years. Let us debate this issue up and down Australia. Let us go to your electorates and see who has the mandate. (Time expired)