Senator ALLISON (Leader of the Australian Democrats) (4:04 PM) —I rise to join in this debate on this important urgency motion relating to Telstra’s announcement about removing payphones around Australia—or, at least, what we have heard about Telstra’s plans to do so. When the Democrats opposed the privatisation of Telstra—the very many tranches of the Telstra sell-off, including the most recent one which made that complete—we warned that Telstra would put shareholder interests ahead of the national interest and that the government’s framework to protect the universal service obligation and ensure the bush had state-of-the-art services was very flawed. Just six months later, Telstra, without informing the government, are pursuing plans to slash payphones in key areas around Australia. I think this is a clear indication that Telstra are putting shareholder interests above national interests. I also imagine this is only the beginning.

Telstra’s obligation to provide payphones is one element of its universal service obligation. The USO, as it is called, is provided for in the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act. One object of the act is that the fulfilment of this universal service obligation should generally be open to competition among carriers and carriage service providers. To this end, the TCPSS Act gives the minister the power to designate a universal service provider with primary responsibility for delivery of the USO, and secondary USO providers for particular services in particular service areas.

Telstra is the current universal service provider for the payphone service obligation for Australia. Loss-making payphones are subsidised through the USO levy. But, according to the Australian Communications Authority in its Payphone Policy Review, published in February last year, payphones provided by Telstra in response to this obligation comprise about 50 per cent of all payphones in Australia, the other 50 per cent being provided on a commercial basis. Given the government’s privatisation agenda, clearly the government must reconsider how it deals with aspects of telecommunications that are in the national interest.

Access to payphones and other telecommunications services such as broadband is critical for the vast majority of Australians, especially for people in rural and remote areas, Indigenous communities, children, overseas tourists and the many Australians who cannot afford mobiles or who simply choose not to use them. I do not think we can stress enough that, with the development of the market for mobile phones, it is the case that payphones are no doubt used far less often than they once were. But I would argue that that does not diminish the responsibility for providing them and that payphones will be used by people in emergency situations, people who do not have a mobile phone and people who may not have a phone at home. The necessity to keep them in those areas so people have access to them has not diminished. These payphones may not be commercially viable; they may not be commercially profitable; nonetheless, that does not mean that Telstra should be entitled to remove them from where they are currently located. At the very least, the communities around which these payphones exist should be consulted, and the removal of any payphone should be with the consensus of the local community. Quite frankly, I doubt very much that that consensus would be reached.

I was interested this week in the comments made by communications expert Paul Budde. He argued that the government should be considering mobile alternatives: turning phone booths into information terminals with access to government services connected with social problems, employment and a whole range of other services that are rapidly becoming difficult to access by telephone. If you need a job and you do not have access to the internet, you are out of luck. If you are homeless and you do not have a mobile phone, the same applies. I think Mr Budde’s idea is an excellent example of a potential whole-of-government approach to community services. I strongly encourage the government to both talk with Telstra about their proposals—in fact, require Telstra to talk to the government about their proposals—and focus on some of the interesting ideas that have come up. (Time expired)