Mr LEE (5:50 PM) —I do not often agree with the honourable member for Hinkler, but I can understand his description of Telstra's behaviour in that case as being a `social obscenity'. Let me give him a second example of a social obscenity that has been committed by Telstra. Today, Telstra announced a record annual profit for an Australian company of $3.5 billion. No doubt the shareholders will be happy. One of the reasons that Telstra attributes this record profit is `the strong growth in new products and services'. No doubt Mr Ziggy Switkowski, the chief executive of Telstra, is pleased to announce that he can deliver this fully franked dividend of 10c a share and a special dividend of 16c a year to the shareholders.

But amid all the good news for Mr Switkowski and the shareholders of Telstra are a number of people who are not getting fair treatment from Telstra. Last week I had a constituent who came to see me about a phone bill that her 25-year-old physically and mentally disabled son has received. She has asked me not to name her, and I will not, but she is very concerned about the impact of this situation not just on her son but on other children who are affected in similar ways.

Basically, her son suffers from cerebral palsy. He is wheelchair bound and has a mild to moderate intellectual disability and a speech impediment. He lives in a granny flat at the back of the family home where, for emergency and social reasons, he has his own phone line installed. Between 11.40 p.m. on 26 June this year and 2.52 p.m. the next day—a period of only 15 hours—her son called a phone chat sex line some 12 times. Three of these calls were for one hour in duration, at which point the calls automatically cut out. The rate at which these calls were being charged, unbeknownst to the disabled son, was $4.95 per minute. It was only because the mother was in the unit the next day that she picked up the phone when Telstra rang her son. If her son had answered the phone this would not have been picked up. The bill for those 15 hours was $1,976.22c, a very hefty bill for anyone for a dozen calls, let alone for a person whose only income is the disability support pension.

The family has raised this with the provider of the service, a company called Card Access. Their response was that they had investigated the case and that they `deemed that the son's intellectual capacity was sufficient to continue the service and that he was able to assess the reality of the situation'. That was the view of the service provider. When the family contacted Telstra and asked Telstra to at least reduce or wipe the bill, Telstra said that it was not a matter for them, that the service was simply an interface provider and that they were not prepared to take any action to discount or delete the bill. They said if the bill was not paid by the family they would cut the disabled son's phone off. When the mother asked how he would be able to use the phone, they said he should get a phonecard and use a public phone. When she explained that he is in a wheelchair and that it would take him 20 minutes to get to a public phone, they said it was not their problem, that it was nothing to do with them. The family had to take the dispute up with the service provider again.

The point I wish to make is that, like the issue raised by the member for Hinkler, this is a social obscenity. Telstra has made a massive profit from these new services, services that Telstra calls in-bound calling products. Telstra has increased its profit in this area from $337 million in 1998 to $400 million this year. That is a 19 per cent increase in its profits from 1900, 1800 and 1300 numbers. That rate of increase and its profit from those in-bound calling products is four times the average rate of growth in Telstra sales, yet Telstra, having made a profit of $3,500 million cannot afford to wipe a bill for $2,000 for a family with a disabled son. This displays the fact that Telstra has become very hard-hearted. On occasions in the past it has displayed the odd aspect of hard-heartedness. We appeal to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts of the day to pick up the phone, ring Telstra and tell them to fix up the problem. Tonight I appeal to Senator Alston: pick up the phone, ring Ziggy Switkowski and demand that Telstra wipe this bill and that of any other parent of a disabled person out there who has been affected in a similar way.

Thank God we are now bringing in the system that requires written requests before these services are hooked up because families like this will no longer be terrorised by Telstra and Card Access in this way. I appeal to Richard Alston: pick up the phone. Ring Ziggy Switkowski and tell him to reduce this bill. (Time expired)