Mr LEE —Mr Speaker, I am sure that you, like me, have noticed the deterioration in the service quality that Telstra is providing its customers since this government sold off a third of the shares. Let me give an example that one of my constituents gave me today. He is a shift worker and he was very keen to call his wife, who is a Telstra employee. He tried to ring his wife, who works at one of the Telstra offices at Gosford, and he was put through to a Peter in Melbourne. Then he was put on hold and they could not help him. Then he was put through to a Faye in Canberra, and he was put on hold again and they could not help him. Then he was put on to an Alan in Wollongong. So 25 minutes elapsed before this person gave up in disgust because he could not reach his wife before he headed off for work. He made the obvious point that, if it had been an emergency, everyone would have been dead.

Mr Speaker, I am sure that, if you have had cause to use the Telstra inquiry numbers, you would know that these days you are being required to wait very long periods of time before you are provided with your number, and you actually have to sit through an advertisement for the call direct service—the 12 456 number—which, by the way, gives Telstra extra money through charges. If you ring the free call number, you have to put up with advertisements and additional messages from Telstra before they even give you the telephone number you need. Is it any wonder that Australians realise they are suffering a serious deterioration in the quality of the service they are getting from Telstra, because this Prime Minister (Mr Howard) sold off a third of the shares?