Mr ORGAN (1:56 PM) —The recent announcement of record high youth unemployment rates of 35 per cent in Wollongong and a general rate of 9.7 per cent in the Illawarra was followed just over a week ago by a further kick in the guts, with an announcement by Telstra of the sacking of 48 of its long-term permanent staff from its Wollongong sales call centre. This came on top of the recent sacking of eight local maintenance workers, with over 210 years of local experience between them, and the promise of more sackings to come. This disgraceful situation is presented to the local community as `efficiency cuts', when what it is all about is Telstra management following the dictates of the government and getting rid of large numbers of full-time staff—working Australians supporting thousands of families—in order to raise the Telstra share price prior to the imminent sell-off. These Telstra workers are then forced to seek employment with contractors and Telstra fronts such as Stellar, where wages and conditions are disgracefully inadequate.

The sacking of the 48 Wollongong call centre staff at this point in time is especially heartless. Many are long-term employees, with up to 20 years as Telstra employees. Many are members of the union, the CPSU. The vast majority want and need their jobs. They do not want to be sacked, made redundant or thrown on the dole queue. They finish up just before Christmas, and if they take a redundancy package they will not be able to apply for any job with Telstra for two years. The Telstra subsidiary Stellar—and I understand the boss of Stellar is a Telstra employee—has a disgraceful policy in the Illawarra of not employing Telstra workers. Why? Because they are more often than not union members. Some of the 48 workers who face the sack in November have recently approached Stellar and been told to go away. Telstra tells us that it is investing $2½ million—(Time expired)