Mr FILING (11:16 AM) —If I could just speak briefly obviously not on my amendments but on the government's amendments. Yesterday in the House I asked a question of the Minister for Family Services (Mr Warwick Smith), who represents the Minister for Communications, the Information Economy and the Arts (Senator Alston), about Telstra's role in relation to Internet service and Internet access provision. One of the great problems, in my view, in our telecommunications system in relation to Internet service and access provision is that Telstra is, in essence, in the same business as the people to whom it supplies lines to conduct their own businesses. In my view, that is a gross conflict of interest. I think that should be abolished as a matter of grave urgency.

I have an my interest in the Internet service provision and access provision industry and have made inquiries over some time about the problems associated with access to lines. Generally speaking, Telstra appears to have done the right thing. It appears to have provided lines reasonably swiftly to IAPs and they, to my knowledge, have not made substantial complaints about Telstra's slowness. Nonetheless, the fact that Telstra is in business with big pond Internet access is in itself a conflict of interest because, in essence, Telstra is providing the very same service as its competitors but they cannot do their service without Telstra providing them with lines. In my view, not only is that a conflict of interest; it is anti-competitive and in fact flouts very seriously what the coalition government would consider to be its competition policy.

The Internet will be one of the major growth industry areas in telecommunications service provision. It is my view that one of the most serious impediments it could have is having a conflict of interest or an anti-competitive influence like this. It behoves the minister to do something about this matter of urgency.

I was interested to hear the minister representing the minister for communications say in response to my question yesterday about how long this particular monopoly would last that he did not know. I know the minister representing the minister for communications is one of the best informed people in this parliament about the telecommunications industry. With his having been the Telecommunications Ombudsman in the past and his being an intelligent minister who performs well, it is surprising that he was not in a position to answer this question.

I suggest that the monopoly will continue. If that is the case and the sale of Telstra goes ahead on the basis that Telstra enjoys what is a very substantial monopolistic role in the provision of Internet access service to the Australian community, I think that is a matter of great shame to the coalition government. It should not proceed unless those sorts of issues are overcome. I know the Minister for Finance and Administration (Mr Fahey), being an advocate for greater competition, would probably agree with me, but unfortunately he is responsible for the carriage of the bill for another minister, another department.

I must point out that, as the shadow minister observed in his speech, this represents also a dividend for Telstra. Telstra's monopoly in this area is a considerable asset and naturally enough the government, in trying to realise the greatest possible return from the sale of its asset, is unlikely to withdraw that monopoly. Therefore, the government has a conflict of interest. This is one of those classic cases where a government, in endeavouring as it says to introduce wider competition into a particular market, is in actual fact restricting competition through its very own administrative or legislative arrangements in relation to Telstra.

So here we have a situation where a government, committed as it says to competition policy—I will talk very soon about another aspect of competition between digital and analog networks—is going to market Telstra to the community and elsewhere with a monopoly built in—a monopoly that, in my view, is a very serious impediment to the development of Internet services in this country and something that the government ought to remedy as soon as possible.