Mr TANNER (3:16 PM) —For some years now, the theme of telecommunications services in regional Australia has been a constant drumbeat in Australian politics. In debate between both sides of the parliament, the focus has been on the state of services in the bush. In its relentless ideological pursuit of privatising Telstra, the government has had one giant fig leaf with which it has sought to protect itself, to disguise the reality of what it was doing—that it would not privatise Telstra until services in the bush are up to scratch, that regional Australia would not have to suffer the consequences of privatisation of Telstra until such time as telecommunications services in the country are up to scratch. This has been used as a fig leaf by Liberal and National members who represent rural electorates all around Australia.

Today the fig leaf has been torn off. It has been torn up and thrown into the wind—and let me tell you that what is underneath is not a very pretty sight at all. We saw it in all its glory in question time. When asked to respond to the state of telecommunications services in regional Australia and the leaked Telstra documents which show that they are getting worse, not better, the Deputy Prime Minister responded, `It is not up to me to defend Telstra.' In other words, it is none of his business. He is only the Deputy Prime Minister. He is only the leader of The Nationals. He is only the minister for regional services. But the state of telecommunications services in regional Australia, the performance of Telstra and criticisms of that performance are none of his business.

For years, both with me in the shadow ministry and with my predecessors, Labor has argued that services are not up to scratch in regional Australia. Shadow ministers have been deluged with complaints and continue to be deluged with complaints from people all around the country about the state of Telstra's network, the level of faults, the quality of service, the number of staff that are there to do all the tasks required to maintain the network, the extent of mobile phone coverage and the roll-out of broadband—and the list goes on.

Labor established a Senate inquiry in order to pursue the issue of the state of Telstra's network and its prolonged neglect of that network. In Tasmania, with Senator Sue Mackay we exposed photographic evidence of the neglect of the network and the use of bandaid solutions like plastic bags being put around joins of Telstra cables because Telstra staff were not able to properly fix them. We pursued questions in this House and in Senate estimates. We have exposed the misleading use of figures about fault levels by the Australian Communications Authority and we have exposed the waste and pork-barrelling of the Networking the Nation program. On top of all this, we have continually drawn attention to the fact that, since about 1999, Telstra's capital investment has dropped by over $1 billion. From almost $4½ billion a year four or five years ago, Telstra's investment in its network, its capital and its infrastructure in Australia has dropped to a little over $3 billion a year, and over that time it has cut 20,000 staff. Over that time, the number of Telstra workers who are actively engaged in delivering services to people in metropolitan and regional Australia has dropped by 20,000.

The government, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have blithely waved away this evidence: `Nope, it doesn't exist. Services are fine; Telstra can proceed to be privatised.' They had a tame inquiry by a personal friend of the Deputy Prime Minister and member of The Nationals, Dick Estens, they ignored the evidence and then they came forward with a mickey mouse program of $45 million a year to improve telecommunications services in the bush and pronounced them up to scratch. The Prime Minister pronounced in August last year that, yes, they are more or less up to scratch; things are fine.

Today that argument ends. That argument is now over. The leaked presentation from within Telstra's infrastructure services division shows absolutely clearly that not only are things not up to scratch but they are actually getting worse. They also incidentally show that Telstra has misled the parliament and the Prime Minister has misled the Australian people. The contrast between the claims of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the minister and Telstra and the reality that is exposed by these documents could not be starker. I want to spend some time today going through some of the examples of the statements. They are six relatively short pages, with some graphs and some statements about the state of play with respect to Telstra's network and faults, but they could not be starker. They could not be clearer. The document states that faults around Australia in Telstra's network are at a six-year peak and, conceivably, even a 10-year peak. So much for services being up to scratch. The document states:

it is not static; it is increasing—

The document also states:

so not only are faults increasing but also the rate of increase is going up—

But, according to the government, everything is fine. According to the government, Telstra is dealing with the problems. And of course, according to the Deputy Prime Minister today, even if it is not, it is not his business. He does not have to worry about it. The government says, `Things are fine; things are improving; Telstra can be privatised.' Remember, that is the bottom line. That is what this is all about—selling Telstra. That is what this debate is ultimately all about. The document states:

A slight translation is required. What that means is: `We no longer do maintenance or preventive work to ensure that faults do not occur. We put on bandaids as an emergency solution when faults happen.' That is what that statement means. There is less routine maintenance and less preventative activity to ensure that the network has integrity and is functional, and there are more bandaids and temporary fixes. The document continues:

In other words, even the bit that they have managed to do is not holding back the tide.

But, according to the government, the former and current minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, the government is future-proofing Telstra and its network and services in regional Australia so that it can sell it. According to the government, what it is doing is future-proofing or providing an effective, ironclad guarantee for country Australians so that it does not matter that Telstra is privately owned; it will continue to deliver decent services of a high standard in country Australia. The facts are absolutely the opposite of that claim and this document proves it irrefutably. The document goes on to say:

It says:

So their objective is not to improve things; it is just to hold things where they are, but they cannot achieve that because they do not have the money. The document also predicts that faults will continue to increase between now—or from December of last year, when the document was made available—and June 2005. In other words, not only is the situation worse than it was a little while ago; it is going to get even worse.

What has Telstra been saying about this? Telstra, with an army of PR people and lawyers and a giant bureaucracy, has the capacity to put out the real picture to the public. What has it been doing? In a Senate estimates hearing on 16 February of this year, Senator Mackay asked a pretty forensic set of questions about recent reports of increased faults in Telstra's network. Mr Bill Scales and Mr Anthony Rix were there representing Telstra. Their answer was to blame the weather. There had been a few storms recently, in Brisbane in particular. Brisbane had a bit of weather and so did Sydney. They could not quite explain why Melbourne had these problems because Melbourne had not had much weather recently. Nonetheless, it was the fault of the weather. Blame the weather!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. I.R. Causley)—The member for Rankin is in a parlous position!

Mr TANNER —I almost thought I heard one of them say, `We'll all be ruined.' They did not quite get that far, but I almost thought somebody in the background said, `We'll all be ruined.' But the crucial statement came from Anthony Rix. He said:

In other words, our argument and Labor's position on this issue is simply wrong—it is a myth. Fair enough—he is entitled to put that point of view. Unfortunately for Telstra, this internal Telstra document from the people who actually run the network says the opposite. It says:

I think the senators have some cause to have a bit of a chat to the people from Telstra who were giving evidence before them. I look forward to them pursuing initiatives in their own way.

The conclusion could not be clearer. The government's case for privatising Telstra is based on the giant, outrageous lie that services are up to scratch in regional Australia. Telstra has misled the Australian parliament, the Prime Minister has misled the Australian people and the government's own precondition for selling Telstra, on the day that this issue is being debated in the parliament, is exposed as a total fraud. The real position is that Telstra's network is stuttering and bumbling along like an old Leyland P76, held together by bandaids and string and barely able to do the job that is being asked of it.

Mr Crean —Weathering the storm!

Mr TANNER —Yes, it is weathering the storm, but only just. It is declining in quality and faults are increasing. We have cables over front lawns, plastic bags on joins and cables running over hay bales and down creek beds—you name it. It is everything but a decent high-quality telecommunications service for people in country Australia.

While this continues, Telstra continues to cut investment and cut staff. Is it cutting back because Telstra does not have any money? It is quite the contrary. Telstra is literally awash with cash. It tried to buy Fairfax and that proved to be a bit of a difficulty. But it found a consolation prize. If it could not read the Age it would get the Trading Post. At least it can get a decent second-hand fridge! It might have been overpriced, it might have little to do with delivering telecommunications services to Australians and it might have been based on a dreamed-up version of a profit multiple as the basis for calculating the price, but who knows how it will benefit consumers in telecommunications services, be it in regional Australia or in metropolitan Australia? The reality in the bush is simple: the network is crumbling, faults are soaring, dial-up Internet drop-outs are an everyday matter of life, mobile phone coverage is still ordinary, most of them do not have broadband and there is no realistic prospect of getting it.

My old friends, The Nationals, the alleged representatives of country Australia, have cravenly capitulated to the investment bankers and lawyers in the Liberal Party who stand to benefit by hundreds of millions of dollars of fees as a result of Telstra being privatised. If Telstra management are not interested in tackling these issues, if the nutty professor and the rest of Telstra management are not interested in tackling the problems of telecommunications in Australia, if they want to run Disneyland, movie studios, theme parks and media, perhaps that is what they should go and do. The telecommunications company that we have in this country is still majority owned by the Australian government because it delivers essential services. It is still primarily a public utility and it is critical to the future economic health of this nation. If the people who are in charge of it do not want to run a telecommunications company maybe they should be looking at the classified ads of some of those papers they wanted to buy.

I challenge the Prime Minister to come into the parliament at the end of the debate on the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 2003 [No. 2] and to push aside his docile, facile, servile minister, from whom we have not heard a squeak, and tell the truth on this issue. Once and for all, tell the truth about services in regional Australia. Labor will not privatise Telstra; we will ensure that Telstra gets back on the job.