Mr HARDGRAVE (12:12 PM) —There is no doubt that Australians should feel a lot more comforted as a result of this government's actions with regard to consumer based issues in the delivery of services by the various telecommunications carriers. The Telecommunications (Carrier Licence Charges) Amendment Bill 1998 involves the mechanics of raising the funds that are necessary to run some of the watchdogs and the instruments in determining that proper plans are place and that proper execution of those plans occurs.

It is worth reflecting on some of the previous comments, as I generally do in telecommunications bills. I often follow the member for Dobell (Mr Lee) and I always delight in that particular approach. It is worth reflecting on a few of his comments. It is certainly a fact that the previous government set in train a series of events that have led to a lot of the complaints the member for Dobell has aired today. The natural advantage they legislated for Telstra in their 1991 act springs to mind immediately. Telstra was allowed to turn its back on legitimate requests from potential competitors to provide the infrastructure for those competitors to compete. This was a great shame. Before the member for Dobell interjects and says that I am suggesting a socialist instrument in the form of some sort of national telecommunications infrastructure, I have said this before and I will continue to say it: it is a legitimate role of government in this country, with sparse population, to provide infrastructure for industries to use.

Essentially, to paraphrase the way the 1991 act worked, it would be like getting Lindsay Fox and TNT and a couple of other transport companies each to build a Pacific Highway for their own trucks to travel on. Essentially, the Labor government was not going to legislate that there should be infrastructure in place. They essentially said, `If you want to go and run a telephone company, Optus, you go and build your own cable system.' It was like saying, `If you want to run your own trucking company, Lindsay Fox, build your own Hume Highway.' That is just a nonsense. That approach has cost the country $8 billion or $9 billion in infrastructure duplication and the unsightly mess of mobile telephone arrays scattered on corners in your electorate, I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, as they are in mine. Those matters were addressed in the 1996 Telecommunications Bill that this government brought to this place, which was passed and which brought about a tougher regime on telecommunications carriers, just as we are bringing about a tougher regime to make sure consumer issues are being addressed.

It is worth knowing that Telstra as an organisation will continue to dominate the Australian marketplace for those sorts of reasons and many others. The aspirations of local call providers—and there are umpteen different companies that would like to provide cheaper local calls to Australian consumers—are always going to be dashed by the difficulty of infrastructure. This government has provided a requirement on telecommunications infrastructure providers to give access to those aspirants. That, I think, is proof that this government has acted. The previous government signed away the potential for change because of technology in the area of analog phones in rural and regional Australia, on which I know the honourable member for Wannon (Mr Hawker), amongst others, has had some strong views.

Mr Hawker —Yes, I have.

Mr HARDGRAVE —I know you have. The matter of analog phones in rural and regional Australia is a matter created directly by the previous government's failure and lack of insight to properly plan. Planning is what is at the heart of this particular bill before us today. It is interesting to know, on the question of analog phones, who signed the contract, who signed the deal with Vodafone that effectively is at the heart of why analog phones have to be phased out in a compulsory sense. It was the Hon. K.C. Beazley. Mr Beazley, of course, is now the Leader of the Opposition.

All I will say is that if Telstra is failing to meet certain matters of consumer expectations on deadlines for repairs and maintenance and those sorts of matters, they are things that I believe the ACCC has to look at. The ACCC, within its functions and powers, has some specified directives that they can offer. They have tougher powers and tougher penalties that they can impose because of this government's own actions. But the reason some of these matters might be occurring is simply because the previous government set the whole system up for a fall.

I have my own complaint: the Network Operations Centre in Brisbane has been relocated to Melbourne. I think the Hon. Jeff Kennett, the Premier there, provided a very aggressive incentive program to Telstra to do that. But 90 jobs were lost for Queenslanders involved in the NOC centre. In my letter to Frank Blount about that, which he never did respond to—he got someone from some department somewhere to respond to me, which I thought was quite discourteous—my argument was that if a line broke in Julia Creek, the NOC centre in Melbourne would probably fix the one between Melbourne and Geelong before they got around to Julia Creek. So there are some understandable difficulties that are perhaps inherent in the system. The member for Bruce (Mr Griffin) might be happy about that particular result but I am sure the electors of the member for Kennedy (Mr Katter) would not be. In fact, I said to him that Melbourne is as close to an area like Julia Creek as a place like Vanuatu is, or perhaps Jakarta, so I suspect the Network Operations Centre could have been there.

I do think the member for Dobell has expressed a legitimate concern, as others on this side of the chamber have, about the staff allocation priorities of Telstra. But again, if they do not perform, if they do not get results, there are some tough measures in place to penalise them, and I think that is good. But at the heart of the difficulties is the fact that the Labor Party in government did not legislate for real competition. To have the member for Dobell in here today talking about competitive regimes and the need for real competition to perhaps, through market forces, keep Telstra honest in these particular maintenance areas is in itself an absolute farce. You only have to look at the collapse of the Galaxy-Australis group in recent weeks to know that they are also a victim of the big fall that the previous government legislated for, to know that exactly what I mean is true.

The bill before us today is all about the imposition of an annual charge on the carriers, to be sure that the ACA, the Australian Communications Authority, and the ACCC are able to meet their very modest costs in monitoring the industry development plan arrangements—some $600,000 in the first year, based on the expectations of part 2 of schedule I of the Telecommunications Act 1997. It is likely to grow as the number of carriers increases, and that is fair enough. This bill will enable all the various costs imposed in the monitoring of these matters to be recovered by the Commonwealth.

The other point I would like to make is to offer a caution to these various instrumentalities monitoring the progress and processes of commercial enterprises. I would hate to see them go the way the Department of Communications and the Arts spectrum management people have gone. Under the previous government, progress on the matter of local area plans for commercial radio operations, amongst other things, fell way behind. For people who need to be able to plan with certainty and to understand what might be occurring in what particular area, having three- and four-year delays in getting basic plans in place is an absolute farce.

With new technology constantly imposing itself in the area of telecommunications, carriers would be rightly upset if the bureaucracy monitoring them were to retard their natural aspirations to progress their industry in order to provide better technology, better services. Those involved in the monitoring must not slow the operator's natural aspirations for progress.

In this bill the government is showing an understanding of the need to plan and to have Australian content involved in the equipment for the delivery of telecommunications services. It is important in a regime which is encouraging more carriers to get involved, and more participants in offering telephone and telecommunication services generally to the Australian consumer, that we have proper monitoring of standards and proper planning. It is, though, as I said at the outset, of great regret that the previous government set up the whole matter, not necessarily to collapse—it has not done so—but certainly in a way which put a great deal of pressure on the system. To get real competition in this requires, perhaps, a heavier financial commitment than would have been the case if infrastructure, rather like the Pacific Highway or the Hume Highway, had been offered for universal access, rather than the situation being set up that Optus had to go and spend so much money. About $8 billion or $9 billion more than this country should have had to spend was expended to duplicate, in a lot of cases, our telecommunications infrastructure. Naturally, I commend the bill to the Main Committee.