Mr HAWKER (4:11 PM) —That last little bit reminded me of being hit with a wet lettuce. I thought this was supposed to be a serious debate, and I was extremely disappointed when listening to the member for Melbourne. I had expected a lot more. He began with pathetic personal attacks, just like he did today when he asked that one frivolous question before the MPI. If you look back, despite what happened two years ago with the Besley inquiry—when we started an attack on Besley and on what he was doing and then saw very quickly that Besley demonstrated his independence—I have no doubt that the current inquiry will demonstrate the same thing. We have already shown as a government that we take these inquiries very seriously. When the Besley report came out, we responded and acted on the points recommended by Besley and made sure that those improvements were made.

It is unfortunate that the member for Melbourne, in his diatribe, was clearly and quite deliberately misleading the House on a number of matters. He failed to point out that Telstra is regulated when it comes to services through the universal service obligation and that this government has strengthened that to make sure that people in the country and in the city get better services. We have the customer service guarantee, which he also chose to omit mention of in his presentation. The third point he chose to omit was that STD prices are continuing to come down, so customers are getting benefits. What was really sad about his presentation was that, in short, he failed totally to acknowledge the remarkable gains that have occurred in communications in the last few years. That is something that the government is proud of and I think it is something that all Australians appreciate, because these gains are quite remarkable. When you think about it, the points made by the member for Melbourne when he said that this was just a filler were so short on content that it was quite sad. In the end, there was tedious repetition, and one would assess that his heart was not even in it.

The other point I want to make about today's MPI shows just how weak the opposition are and how they are in total disarray. We heard this puffed-up concern about the fact that Labor are really worried about Iraq. Clearly, if we want to talk about phoney debates, that was the phoney debate today: their concern about debating Iraq. They had the opportunity with the MPI, but there has been no MPI on Iraq. Clearly all that concern was just feigned and phoney.

I would like to mention a couple of things about the presentation by the member for McMillan. He started off with more tedious repetition. In fact, I thought he seemed to be more interested in talking about the deals that might go with the further privatisation of Telstra than debating the point. At the end he was really hard to follow. He finished up with some fanciful and rather contradictory logic.

This MPI clearly misrepresents government policy. So that everyone is quite clear, I will repeat it: the government has undertaken not to proceed with any further sale of Telstra until it is fully satisfied that arrangements are in place to deliver adequate telecommunications services to all Australians, including maintaining the improvements to existing services. That is quite clear. The government put that qualifying point on it, and it has now announced a second inquiry to make sure that people will have an opportunity to put their views and make it quite clear if they are not happy. There could not be anything more democratic or a better way of consulting with the community to make sure that people are informed.

But what do we find with the Labor Party? The first thing the Labor Party do is attack the people on the inquiry. Then they talk about its other shortcomings. Let us go back to what happened in the year 2000. I suppose we should not be surprised that, when we established the independent Besley inquiry two years ago, Labor's words were that the inquiry was `fatally politically compromised', that it was not `free from political interference', that it was a `political stunt' and that it `created a perception of a clear conflict of interest'. In fact, Labor went so far as to call on the then head of the inquiry, Mr Besley, to resign and for the government to scrap the inquiry. The then shadow minister, the member for Perth, claimed, `You can have absolutely no confidence that this report can be regarded as an objective, impartial assessment of Telstra's service levels.' Isn't it funny that, when the report came out, they thought that it was a pretty good one. There is something odd about the Labor Party: they do not seem to have a great deal of consistency. We can understand the frustrations of the member for Melbourne. He did try to put forward a policy position, but the unions very quickly moved in on him and he is back-pedalling as fast as he can. It seems we no longer know what the opposition's position is.

It is interesting to note that one spokesman for the Labor Party, the New South Wales Premier, Mr Carr, made it quite clear that Labor are in favour of privatising Telstra. He pointed out that he actually agreed with the federal government that Telstra could be sold once services in regional Australia are up to scratch. That is exactly what our policy is. That is exactly what Carr said. It is also interesting to see the disarray of the Labor Party. The Canberra Times of 20 July noted:

and this is the interesting part—

So there we have it: the opposition are in total disarray, hoping things will be done so that they do not have to be seen to be supporting what they really want to see happen. It is really quite remarkable.

I will quickly run through some of the things that this government have done to get better communications into the country for all Australians. We have put in place a number of strong consumer safeguards, and they are certainly working. We have introduced a customer service guarantee. When people come to me with problems nowadays I know that I can get very quick results from Telstra, particularly since they introduced Telstra Countrywide—something brought about through this government. It shows that not only are we interested in making sure that people in the country get services but also we are going to make sure that they happen. We brought in the digital data obligation, under which 96 per cent of Australians are able to obtain a 64-kilobyte per second ISDN service. For those who cannot get that service, we are able to supply a satellite service that is comparable, with a 50 per cent rebate on price. We have strengthened the universal service obligation, and we have also maintained the requirement that all Australians must have access to untimed local calls. As well, we have ensured that low-income customers are adequately protected from line rental increases. Another very important thing for people in the country, despite Labor's mess with the analog system, is that we ensured that Telstra brought in the CDMA system to replace it to make sure we get better services. Through Networking the Nation we have put considerable funds into the country.

As I said at the beginning, in whatever way you look at it, this government have made sure that communications have improved radically over the last few years. There is no doubt that we have a very strong commitment to maintaining and improving communication services for people right across the nation. We have a very proud record, and I think all Australians recognise that. Frankly, this MPI is just a filler. It shows that the Labor Party are devoid of ideas and that they cannot put a consistent point of view on the whole issue. Today's MPI demonstrates that the disarray has extended not only to policy but also to even choosing the issues that they can raise in an MPI.