Mr PRICE (10:25 PM) —I firstly want to defend the member for Calare (Mr Andren) from the attacks of the member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey). I do that by reading a press release of 31 March from the Australian Communications Authority. It is headed `Carrier Performance During December Quarter 1997' and states:

Telstra again reported mixed service performance results for the quarter. Results for provision of new services on or before the agreed commitment date declined for all customer categories. In particular, performance for country customers declined by nine percentage points. Performance for restoration of service and fault reporting indicators once again declined during the December 1997 quarter, with country customers suffering the most.

My leader and party are opposed to this privatisation. I say to the member for O'Connor: you have not really thought it through. Towards the end of his speech, he cottoned on to the universal service obligation. I happen to agree with the remark that the plain old, ordinary telephone should be the minimal requirement for the universal service obligation is quite dated. In fact, I want to compliment an earlier contribution by the member for Kennedy (Mr Katter), who pointed out to the House that we are depopulating rural and regional Australia.

As an urban Labor member with a poor electorate, I say that this ought to be a matter of concern. If anything, I would have thought National Party members would have been saying of farmers and small business in rural and regional Australia that they should not just have the prices that they are being offered at the moment but in fact they should have lower prices in order to increase their competitiveness. They do suffer a significant disadvantage. But what does the member for O'Connor say? He says, `Look, if you've got a problem in rural and regional Australia, don't worry, spend $5,000 with a satellite dish and for a mere $4 a minute all your problems are solved, you will have digital service.' What bloody great news for the bush that is!

It is true that I was involved in the deregulation that we undertook in 1988 and then later in 1991. I say to the House that I am amazed at the National Party. When I first came into this parliament you could guarantee that the National Party would speak up—if not in this parliament, in the joint party room—to ensure that the needs of rural and regional Australia were not sold out. Undoubtedly, they are being sold out in this bill.

The Prime Minister (Mr Howard) takes great satisfaction from the fact that 92 per cent of Telstra employees are now shareholders. I think that is a good thing. I do not have a problem with it. But what I do have a problem with is that the Prime Minister condones Telstra when they say, `We will sack you if you start reporting difficulties of service problems in rural and regional Australia. Shareholder or worker'—both roles—`we will sack you, we will gag you. How dare you publicly alert your customers to how poor the service is or the decline in service.' I am surprised that his government allows shareholders to be so gagged.

There is no doubt that the urban poor and rural and regional Australia will suffer the consequences. The honourable member for O'Connor mentioned community service obligations. I well remember the department saying, `Look, we ought to put these out to tender, Telstra might be unsuccessful,' completely missing the point that you have to lock the dominant carrier, Telstra, into providing services for the bush. What rural and regional Australia require is far more than a plain, ordinary telephone service. I would have thought that the members from the bush would have given this bill a lot of scrutiny and would have said, `Look, we are completely dissatisfied with it. You cannot privatise this.'

Debate interrupted.