Senator FERGUSON (2:37 PM) —My question is to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Alston. Minister, has the government made a commitment to ensure that phone services are adequate before any further sale of Telstra is considered? What other safeguards has the government committed to in relation to Telstra? Why is it important that any surveys about Telstra accurately represent these government commitments?

Senator ALSTON (Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) —That is a very important question, Senator Ferguson, and I am indebted to you for asking it. It is only a pity that Senator Mackay is not able to have the same frank discussion with her colleagues when they come to debating their break-up strategy for Telstra. Our strategy is actually to keep Telstra together and to make sure it continues to deliver the services that all Australians expect from it. As I am sure everyone knows, we have an inquiry under way at present—it is due to report on 8 November—that will tell us whether services are up to scratch and, if necessary, what more needs to be done. At the same time, we have given commitments that, irrespective of any change in ownership, we will adhere to things like the universal service obligation, the customer service guarantee—which, of course, we initiated and which has been working so well—price caps, untimed local calls, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, network framework reliability, the national relay service and the digital data service obligation, which is of particular interest to people in regional and rural Australia. So there is a great deal which Australians not only expect but also can have absolute confidence will be kept in place if there is any change in ownership.

The other area where you often get a bit of scaremongering is foreign ownership. That is why the Telstra Corporation Act already provides for a maximum 35 per cent foreign ownership and imposes a limit on any individual foreigner of five per cent ownership. The Telstra act goes on to require that the head office remain in Australia and that a majority of the board—and, indeed, the chairman—must also be Australian citizens. We have been very careful to ensure that we address all of the relevant issues, and anyone who wants to go out and put survey questions to the Australian public should do likewise. In other words, it is not good enough to get out there and ask, `Are you in favour of privatisation? I am not, and I am only interested in hearing from you if you are not, but are you in favour of privatisation?' That is what the three Independents who are busy running around the countryside, desperately trying to find a reason to justify their existence, are now proposing. As Senator Boswell quite rightly said at the weekend—I see this statesman on television most Saturday nights, and there he was again—Independents cannot deliver. It is a fraud; it is a trick on the public. All they can do is whinge, and whingeing does not get you anywhere.

Opposition senators interjecting—

Senator ALSTON —Look at this lot! They have been at it for 6½ years—it gets them nowhere. What they have to do is come up with constructive ideas; that is what the game is all about. They have given us a fair start, I admit, and it is never too late, but the signs are not very promising. You would have thought that an Independent who had a constructive view of the world might be making a contribution, but that is not what we look like getting from the three Independents who are out there trying to scare the pants off ordinary citizens in regional and rural Australia and saying that they are going to stop the full sale. When I said to them that they ought to put the question in context and make sure people understood all of these safeguards that would be in place, what response did I get? Mr Andren said, `Of course we are confident that our survey questions will be balanced and objective.' It is just a nonsense; it is a charade. They cannot possibly be doing anything other than running a low-grade fear campaign. The only thing you can say about them, I suppose, is that they are a little above the Labor Party when it comes to honesty on this issue. At least they seem to have a glimmer of understanding and are not being as utterly cynical as the Labor Party, which in private, of course, support the full privatisation of Telstra and are always running around asking merchant banks to give them the latest model for breaking it up and flogging off the pieces. That is what structural separation is all about. That is what keeping the network in government ownership is all about—so you can flog the rest. (Time expired)