Mr LINDSAY (5:15 PM) —I do not think the opposition has any sincerity whatsoever about this debate on the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 . It is interesting that last week I was reviewing some of the advertising that occurred at the last election, particularly the television advertising. Wasn't it interesting to see the opposition's commercials indicating that, if you elected a Howard government, you could expect timed local calls? It just has not happened and it is not going to happen. The government has made a guarantee in that respect, and the fear and the scare campaign from the opposition on what might happen in selling Telstra certainly will not be substantiated.

I was having a look through my records and I had some photographs of polling booths at the last election, and there were kilometres of plastic put out by the Labor Party and the message was, `Keep Telstra Australian.' That is what the government has done, and that is what the government will continue to do. Telstra will not have majority foreign ownership. It will have a majority Australian board. It will have Australian management. The management will be located in Australia. I think we will keep faith with everything that we have said we would do. We have been honest, we have been direct, we have indicated to the electorate and they voted. I think we have a clear mandate to do what the government has intended it will do.

We seem to have come the full circle with the Labor Party on this debate. We have come the full circle in terms of what the former Labor member for Herbert has said in relation to the sale of public assets. We have gone the full circle from the early 1980s rhetoric of Bob Hawke saying that there was no way institutions like Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank would be privatised, the point the member for Braddon (Mr Miles) was making earlier in the debate. In the late 1980s, pressure was mounting and Labor began to waver on this issue, except whenever an election loomed. By the time Keating finally knocked off Bob Hawke for the top spot, Labor were proudly announcing the 100 per cent sale of Qantas. Now Labor are out of office and in opposition and, once again, they are opposing the sale of public organisations.

In the former member for Herbert's case, it is like he has forgotten altogether, because the Townsville public were treated to this little gem of a quote in the Townsville Bulletin on 30 October last year. In relation to the sale of Townsville airport—a sale which, incidentally, Labor initiated—the former Labor member said:

I deplore the sale of a publicly owned asset.

It really bears repeating. After selling in government over 13 years the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, Williamstown dockyard, Aerospace Technologies of Australia, Garden Island dockyard, the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, the Moomba-Sydney gas pipeline and the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation, Ted Lindsay suddenly got struck by lightning and said, `I deplore the sale of a publicly owned asset,' yet he voted for the lot. Ted Lindsay should enter a springboard diving or gymnastics competition after performing a backflip as good as that. The point which needs to be noted from this is that Labor will say one thing in opposition and do another in government and this certainly appears to be the case with Labor's candidate for the seat of Herbert. He will do anything, say anything and support anyone in order to get back into office.

I thought the warning from the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) yesterday during question time was quite apt and can be applied just as easily to Ted Lindsay as the Prime Minister applied it to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Beazley). The Prime Minister said:

This is the man that no doubt the new Labor candidate for Dickson had in mind when she said:

I think Labor in opposition won't sell Telstra, but I'm more worried about Labor in government.

I think that is a quote which deserves some attention. On the contrary, the coalition has always been up-front and honest about its position on public assets in a modern economy. We have always been up-front about where we stand on the sale of Telstra. Unlike the Labor approach to privatisation, the coalition in opposition before March 1996 went to the people and said, `If we win office, we'll sell one-third of Telstra and use the proceeds to fund Australia's greatest ever environmental package.' But we also said that, if we were going to sell any more, we would go to the people and let the people decide—and that is the purpose of this bill.

Mr Miles —Did they tell them that they were selling the Commonwealth Bank?

Mr LINDSAY —No, they said they were not selling the Commonwealth Bank, and what did they do? I could not help but laugh at the Leader of the Opposition's claim that taking the question of the full sale of Telstra to the Australian people in a national federal election does not constitute adequately consulting the public. I do not know how else you would do it. I can think of no better way of involving the Australian people in this decision.

Contrast this with the Labor way of doing things in the following example. The Hon. John Moore, a great Queenslander and then in opposition, made an interesting point in question time back in October 1990, when he asked former Prime Minister Hawke:

. . . no doubt he—

meaning Mr Hawke—

will recall writing a letter to the Federal Secretary of the Commonwealth Bank Officers Association on 21 February this year . . . Among other things, it said the following:

My Government is not contemplating the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank. We oppose not only the proposal put forward by the Opposition to sell the Bank, but also question the economic and financial rationale on which they base their short-sighted propositions.

That was an Australian Labor Party Prime Minister saying that his party would not be selling the Commonwealth Bank and, of course, we know what happened shortly thereafter.

Contrary to the opposition's claims, the government is not engaged in the full sale of Telstra purely for the sake of privatisation. The Liberal Party and the Prime Minister have always been consistent and have always applied standards in the sale of public assets. Just as the Prime Minister said at the Liberal Party national convention in Brisbane earlier this year in relation to the full sale:

Good economic policies, sound and prudent fiscal management always return a good and useful social bonus—

so he said in opposition on 24 November 1987, more than 10 years ago:

We have always said that we have to run the test of public and consumer benefit over the proposed sale before making an affirmative decision.

A very consistent policy.

What are the public benefit tests? For a start, taxpayers will directly benefit from the wiping out of 40 per cent of Australia's public debt. Last year, $8,000 million of taxpayers' money went into just paying interest on the public debt the Labor Party ran up over 13 years. That is $8,000 million which is not available to spend on things like education, health, aged care, defence and addressing unemployment. Access Economics' Chris Richardson said on this point:

If we pay off government debt, then we're saving money forever, and the net balance . . . is in favour of the Telstra sale to the tune of $1,500 million a year. That's the saving in interest versus the . . . loss of income from Telstra.

By tackling Australia's debt problem, we free up funds to spend on the things that matter, and this directly benefits all Australians. The first one-third sale of Telstra provided over $1,000 million to fund Australia's largest ever environmental protection and renovation projects right throughout Australia.

Mr Hollis —Pork-barrelling!

Mr LINDSAY —It was not pork-barrelling. It just so happens that the people of rural and regional Australia voted for the coalition, and I do not think that you can have desalination projects in Melbourne! In Townsville the Natural Heritage Trust is funding grassroots landcare and coastcare projects and I have always said that environmental awareness needs to begin in our very backyards. With the money being provided through this government's Natural Heritage Trust, this is precisely what we are achieving.

If, in the full sale of Telstra, we can guarantee services and quality of service to regional and rural Australia and, at the same time, address public debt and generate capital for projects of national significance, then we should. An extra $8,000 million a year will be targeted at improved health, education and regional development. Are you against that? That is what we will be able to spend if we do not have to service the debt that you people gave us. But, as the coalition government recognised from day one, we cannot simply sell Telstra for the sake of privatisation. Being a representative from a major regional Queensland centre, I recognise that there are genuine and serious concerns with this proposal.

The Leader of the Opposition argued that by selling Telstra we are losing a great, if not the greatest, Australian company. I would be interested to know who here in this parliament would argue that the Commonwealth Bank is no longer a great Australian business. I would be interested to know who here would be willing to argue that Qantas is no longer highly respected as an Australian flagship company. The Commonwealth Bank and Qantas are both companies which were privatised by the former Labor government, but that did not make them any less great. Indeed, over the years they have gone from strength to strength.

In a truly democratic society like Australia, governments should not be in business against business. As the Minister for Finance and Administration (Mr Fahey) noted in the second reading speech of this bill, the business of government is to set the framework within which business operates. It is for government to set the conditions under which companies operate, to establish and police safeguards for consumers and to place service obligations on those companies.

This bill sets out the regulatory safeguards in no uncertain terms: a clear universal service obligation; continued access to untimed local calls; a customer service guarantee; special benefits for rural and regional customers; a price cap regime; and a flexible regulatory structure designed to stimulate competition in the telecommunications market—one of the fastest growing areas of the Australian economy. If the government has the will and the commitment to enforce the regulations and safeguards it will lay down, and I believe that it does, then I can find no reason to oppose this bill.

I noted the comment from the member for Boothby (Dr Southcott) earlier that communist countries around the world are divesting themselves of state run or controlled organisations. So why can't the ALP? In reply to the member, I believe, in the lack of other sound evidence, that it has everything to do with the ALP's belief, deep down, that nobody can do it better than the government. It is a paternalistic feeling they cannot help expressing, and it is showing though in a range of other policy issues.

I was initially going to give credit where credit is due in relation to the recent sale of the Townsville airport—a sale of a so-called public asset in Townsville which has been widely welcomed by the local community. It was also a sale which Labor first initiated. I was going to congratulate Labor for this the other week at the announcement of the successful tenderer, but I was reminded of a comment made by the former member for Herbert. This goes back to what I was saying in reply to the member for Boothby about the paternalistic nature of Labor. Not only was the former member, Ted Lindsay, quoted as saying he deplored the sale of publicly owned assets but he also said, `The government is the only party with the capacity to ensure international services are attracted to Townsville.'

Townsville airport once used to cater for international services, in and out of the city, when it was government owned. But the very fact it was government owned meant that it could not keep up when Cairns emerged as a commercial rival. Today Cairns has all the international flights and Townsville has none—under government ownership. The new operator who has bought the 99-year lease of that asset has now said that they are going to reintroduce international flights to Townsville. That is what competition and privatisation can do.

I have no hesitation in supporting the bill before the parliament tonight, and I know that when the next election comes along the majority of the Australian people will also be in support of the government.

Debate interrupted.