Mr WILTON (3:54 PM) —We have seen in recent years slowly, little by little, the old, trusty government service we knew and loved as Telecom—the same sort of service for which the member for Perth's father worked; the same sort of service for which my father worked; and indeed for which I worked myself, given that nepotism was pretty rife in those days—is now mutating into a leaner and meaner privately owned communications giant that we now know as Telstra. Despite the fact that opinion polls show that most people want Telstra to remain in public hands, we see charges for directory assistance as yet another threat to Telstra's service arrangements.

But, as we know, there is almost no turning back on that road to privatisation. The paradox of privatisation is that the more a government surrenders ownership of its vital infrastructure, the more it is inevitably drawn to regulate it. Far from privatisation freeing Telstra to operate, by and large, as it chooses in the free market, it has become without doubt the most heavily regulated corporation in Australia. What does the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston, do in his acquiescence to Telstra to introduce directory charges without, I might add, any reference at all to the ACCC? You guessed it—more regulation. I might mention that the ACCC first reported adversely on Telstra's proposal to introduce directory charges back in 1997.

But bear in mind that the government's fiddling does not end there. The Prime Minister's `Mr Fix-it', Bob Mansfield, has now been appointed as the chairman of the board at Telstra. One may wonder—perhaps somewhat facetiously—why the government bothered to privatise Telstra at all! The member for Perth is dead right when he says that these charges are the thin end of the wedge, because how do you regulate these heinous imposts on mobile phones and small business users of this service? Because over time everyone will be back-scuttled by this. We will all be lumped in to the one group. The government will cast its net further because, if it does not, people who run a small business and need to use the 013 service inevitably will make those 013 calls from their home. And why wouldn't they? Again, it is over to the minister for more regulation.

As the member for Perth again said, today when Telstra announced the highest recorded annual profit of any Australian company, it is slugging small business and mobile phone users, many of them students, with what can only be described as these rotten fees. Not only does the government have a problem because people are suspicious that, as Telstra becomes more privatised, it will start charging for everything—as Fran Kelly said in her introduction on the Radio National program this morning—but people also understand that they are already paying for the directory assistance services in their regular line rental call or monthly arrangements anyway. They also understand that this is a new charge, a new impost, on top of the existing charge.

The Australian Telecommunications Users Group put to Telstra 18 months ago that if it wanted to charge for assistance on a call-by-call basis, then it was appropriate to provide at least some refund on line rental. The then CEO, Frank Blount, agreed that a $5 rebate was reasonable. But that has now gone. This is all new costs against business and mobile phone users for absolutely nothing in the way of additional service.

Whatever really happened to Telstra's capacity to apply CSOs, particularly in traditional areas such as free directory call assistance services? By and large, I think Telstra is frustrated with the relatively modest level of consumer benefit in comparison with overseas experience that has emerged post deregulation. There is no doubt that the government and the ACCC are starting to act with greater urgency and conviction to try to strip the benefits that relate purely to its dominance of the industry infrastructure away from it. Introducing charges for directory assistance will in no way produce results which will ease the government's frustration as to Telstra's demonstrated level of consumer benefit.

Again it is interesting to note that it seems that Telstra can afford, for example, a special dividend to reward its shareholders, as reported in the Chanticleer column in yesterday's Australian Financial Review. Such a dividend is a change in company policy and reflects its short-term desire to help shareholders pay for shares in the new round of shares which are to be offered. So on a day when Telstra has produced a record profit of $3.4 billion—a 16 per cent increase concomitantly in revenue—the same day that special dividends are being touted for shareholders to `buy more shares', the average mobile phone and small business user is being slugged. I can only surmise that the $100 million-plus that Telstra plans to recoup from these charges may be used to perhaps in some part pay that special dividend to assist existing shareholders buy more shares in this forthcoming second tranche.

It would appear that Telstra's corporate arrogance by and large knows no bounds, as it states further in that same Chanticleer article in yesterday's Australian Financial Review:

Business is business and Telstra now has its foot in the door of the politically sensitive issue of charging for directory assistance calls. By charging only business customers first, the company has made it easier, inevitably . . . to later charge residential phones, leaving only pay phones to have free directory-assistance calls.

Even in today's Age we can see further evidence of what might be described as `Telstra-government secrecy'. From an article headed `Homes may pay for 013' by Jason Koutsoukis come the words:

The federal communications minister, Senator Richard Alston . . . refused to rule out future charges on residential calls to Telstra's 013 directory assistance service.

The article goes on, quoting Senator Alston as stating:

But the minister of the day has a legal obligation to consider matters that are put before him . . .

In an inquiry by the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Legislation Committee, Mr Ward of Telstra, when asked by Senator Allison whether or not Telstra had any intention of applying charges for these services, replied, `No immediate plans, but of course it's constantly under review.' As Alan Jones on 2UE replied along similar lines in an interview with the member for Griffith today, `We've heard that before.'

Under the performance standards determined by the ACA, Telstra is required to provide a free directory assistance service to the consumers of Australia. By and large, at the end of the day, Telstra management does indeed hate providing this service on a no-cost or free of charge basis. Once again, this is evidence of its sheer corporate arrogance and indifference to the needs of battling small business and mobile phone users, many of whom may be students who carry a mobile phone for reasons of safety and who cannot afford to pay the impost these charges will apply to them.

To that end, some time ago Telstra wound back the number of staff it employed in directory assistance service arrangements, making it inefficient and hoping that people would indeed not use that service. But they did use it and they continue to use it, despite its increasing inefficiency, because they depend on it. What is Telstra's response to this continuing use? Its response is to introduce these charges.

There is no doubt that, while charges for directory assistance are not prohibited under the Telstra Corporation Act, it has always been the intent of policy makers—it was on that side of the House until recently, and of course it was and still is on this side—to ensure that a single coordinated public directory arrangement exists. It is recognised by us—but it would appear not by the government—that such an arrangement is indeed a fundamental right and a crucial asset of the Australian community. It is one that the Australian community has come to know, to love and to respect. It is one that the Australian community would be able to continue to enjoy, were it not for the rotten deeds of those opposite.