Mr COBB (5:54 PM) —As a member who represents a large rural electorate of some 316,000 square kilometres—almost equivalent to 40 per cent of New South Wales—I enthusiastically welcome the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 . This bill proposes to sell the final two-thirds of Telstra and to transfer the ownership of Telstra, in full, from the government to the people of Australia so that they can own it individually.

We are going about this in a proper, transparent and honest way, which contrasts with the approach the previous government took when they privatised a whole host of government-owned institutions. I well remember their promises that they would not privatise anything, but they went ahead and privatised Qantas, the AIDC, CSL and so on. They faithfully promised they would not privatise any of the Commonwealth Bank, but then privatised the first 30 per cent of it, then another 20 per cent, and then they went ahead and privatised the remaining 50 per cent. So let's not have any of this cant and hypocrisy that they would not privatise Telstra if they were in government today. In fact, it was they who kicked off the privatisation of the communications industry when they allowed in Optus and other companies like Vodafone. We applauded and supported those moves in this House. This confected opposition to our bill is only for the sake of it. They are pretending that they are opposed to it when they know full well, in their heart of hearts, that they would be jumping on this if they had won the last election.

Since we sold a third of Telstra back in 1996, we have been able to expand the universal service obligation which had been allowed to languish for 13 years under the previous government with no updating whatsoever. The old universal service obligation virtually only entitled people to a private phone connection, the ability to make untimed local telephone calls and access to a pay telephone if they were in an area of some population. We have been able to expand that greatly since the one-third privatisation, contrary to what the previous speaker, the honourable member for Hotham (Mr Crean), was saying. We brought in the rural telecommunications infrastructure fund of $250 million, which has allowed the Networking the Nation program to be initiated. The second tranche of programs was announced only a few days ago. On top of that, we are upgrading exchanges to an ISDN standard. The previous government was going to allow that to take place at a very leisurely pace, which would have taken well into the next century.

We are speeding up digitisation everywhere, and we have already expanded the untimed local call area. I think the previous government had forgotten that there were 17,000 connections in Australia—4,000 in my electorate—which could not make an untimed local telephone call. They were on the pastoral rate, which meant they had to pay 25c every 4½ minutes and were restricted as to the number of calls they could make. We have already brought in a system whereby these people will be entitled to a rebate on their telephone bill of $160 a year which they will receive in four quarterly payments of $40. I hope that we will be able to expand on that with the social bonus that will flow from the sale of the remaining two-thirds of Telstra, as we have already done in a number of other areas. With mail deliveries, we have now guaranteed that every person in Australia is entitled to a minimum of two mail deliveries a week, which has been helpful to quite a number of people who live in the remote areas of my electorate. These are very positive things which have been delivered already within the first two years of government.

On top of that, since the one-third sale of Telstra we have been able to bring in the price cap, which means that the price for Telstra services must come down by an average of 7½ per cent a year, less inflation. With inflation running at such a low rate under the good economic management of the coalition government, this will mean that prices will come down an average of around six per cent or more this year.

As well as that, we have been able to speed up the mobile phone coverage of Australia, though I am the first to admit this is still too slow. I hope that this will speed up with the two-thirds sale of Telstra. I realise the LEOS and MEOS—the low-earth orbiting satellites and the medium-earth orbiting satellites—will start to cut in from September this year, although, admittedly, the price for my average constituents will be far too expensive because you will need something like $5,000 for the handpiece and $2.95 per minute for a call. Nevertheless, once we get it in there we will see the prices come down rapidly as we have seen with all the other technologies. That is a step in the right direction.

On top of that, despite the fact that we were locked in by the previous government to get rid of the analog mobile phone service across Australia by the year 2000, the coalition is already negotiating with companies like Vodafone, which had signed those contracts and had committed hundreds of millions of dollars to getting their system in place for digital mobile phone coverage. There are something like 420 towns in country Australia where the digital coverage will extend by a radius of only about 10 kilometres to 15 kilometres from the towers, according to the terrain, and where the analog service is already going out 30 kilometres to 50 kilometres from the analog tower. It has already been agreed with Vodafone to allow the analog coverage to stay in place in 155 of those towns. We are still talking about the other 265 towns, and we believe we will be able to come to a satisfactory arrangement with those.

As well as all this, we have brought in the customer service guarantee, which means that, if you want Telstra to install or repair your phone, or if you want to make an appointment to have Telstra do either of those two things, it has to do it within a certain period of time, otherwise it will incur a penalty. That penalty will be a month's rent for each unit of time that it exceeds what it originally agreed to do.

Unfortunately, some of those time frames are based on what the previous government had put in place, based on what they would like to see. For example, if you live in a town of more than 10,000 people, you can have your phone installed within a week of requesting it, or you can have a fault repaired within one working day. But would you believe that, if you live in a much smaller centre, the time for a connection runs out to 27 months. I had not realised just how bad this was. One of the great things about the coalition bringing this bill forward is that it has started to highlight how tardy some of these requirements are.

I would like to read some excerpts from a letter that I have received from a lady who lives near Nyngan, which is in the centre of New South Wales, about 160 kilometres north-west of Dubbo. It is not way out in the boondocks. This letter is written by Louise Fisher. She and her husband, Stuart, live on Colane Station, only 40 kilometres out of Nyngan. She says:

Dear Michael,

. . . . . . . . .

Six months ago we asked Telstra to provide an additional telephone line to our house.

She gave the order number. She continued:

After several inquiries I again rang 132200 on 1 April 1998, we were told by an operator called Toni (female) that it would be up to 27 months (since our first application) before it could be provided. I asked to speak to a supervisor.

Mr Tony Fry rang back to tell us:

1. Our phone is a radio service and although there are extra lines available they could not be used as the drop out units needed were no longer made.

2. The drop out units would not be manufactured by anyone else.

3. The only way that a drop out unit could be provided was that if someone who was already on a radio service no longer required a phone then they would transfer the drop out unit to the next person on the waiting list.

It is an incredible situation that Telstra are not prepared to be out there manufacturing these units and were going to provide people like the Fishers with only a second-hand unit. She continued:

4. We are 31st on a waiting list of 40 people waiting for drop out units in our area. He believed that our area was Riverina and Far West but was not sure.

5. That there are several types of radio phones and he could not tell me how many people are currently using our type of phone.

6. The time limit of 27 months was because the Austel Regulations require that if an additional/new line was not provided by this time then another method (such as a satellite phone) must be provided.

7. It would not matter if it was a new or additional line. I asked him if a new home was built, or a new business established, then they too would have to wait up to 27 months. Mr Fry agreed.

8. That the whole country was having the phone lines updated so that we could use the internet etc and that we would probably have to wait until they were doing that work. He didn't know when our area was due to be updated.

9. Mr Fry agreed that if our drop out unit was to break down then we would be without a phone to run our business for up to 27 months.

She finishes up by saying, `We would be pleased if you could help us in this matter.' I rang Louise Fisher and spoke to her. It is an incredible situation which we have been tolerating in this country for the last how many decades. As I have said, if ever there was a case for livening up Telstra by privatising it, it must be this offhanded attitude it has had to people.

I am pleased that the previous government took initial steps to privatise the industry. That was the correct method by which to go. I support what they did entirely. In fact, I found when Optus came into the industry the number of complaints I was getting about Telstra through my office started to fall away rapidly. Things that Telstra had in the past told me they could not do, particularly within certain time frames, they suddenly—magically—could do. Now the next logical step has to be taken. We do not have to just privatise the industry; we have to privatise Telstra, and really sharpen them up again.

That is what this bill today is all about. The customer service guarantee that I have been talking about will, I hope, start to collapse some of those times taken for phone connections and for getting repairs done on household and business phones; and also there is the fact that the carrier is now required to meet its appointments within 15 minutes of when it says it will do so—instead of not turning up until the next day, the next week or whenever. I am pleased also that the legislation requires that fines and penalties of up to $10 million be imposed on Telstra to ensure that these things are put in place.

If we are successful—as I am sure we will be—and can sell the remaining two-thirds of Telstra, not only will we have a social bonus that we can expend for the benefit of regional people but also we will be able to do other things. The social bonus, if you like, that flowed through from the sale of one-third of Telstra has made a number of these things possible that I have already listed. But we were able to do other things too. We made available $1¼ billion, a very large amount of money indeed, which we put towards the Natural Heritage Trust, which the ALP opposed, for some incredible reason.

Mr Fitzgibbon —It's a rort.

Mr COBB —The member for Hunter says that it is a rort. But, for heaven's sake, we have been able to do fair dinkum environmental projects in country areas that we had not been able to do before.

Mr Fitzgibbon —In government-held seats.

Mr COBB —He complains about government-held seats. The fact of the matter is: the Labor Party federally holds only 1.17 per cent of the land mass of Australia. Can you believe it that 99 per cent of the land mass of Australia is not held by the Labor Party—it is an extraordinary percentage—and I am told that something like 10 per cent of these funds are being spent in Labor areas. If we are to have an inquiry into this, perhaps it should be because it is slanted towards the Labor Party. Here Labor is, with one per cent of the land mass of Australia, attracting 10 per cent of the funds. What an extraordinary situation. I think we have been far too generous to the Labor Party in this area—far too generous.

On top of that, with the money that we have received by selling one-third of Telstra, we have been able to start paying off some of the debt that the Labor Party racked up when it was in power. Already we are saving $900 million a year in interest—$900 million a year; that is each year, every year, forever. What a great legacy to be able to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

With the selling off of the other two-thirds of Telstra, various other figures have been bandied about, one being $40 billion. I am not sure that we can speak about such figures with any certainty because, as we know, stock markets fluctuate over periods of time. But, if we could pay off $40 billion of the debt that Labor racked up—and I understand that we are paying, on average, something like seven per cent interest rate on that debt—we would save another $2,800 million a year, each year, every year, forever.

If you combine the two figures, that is in excess of $3,500 million a year that we would save, most of which would have gone out of Australia. That is because those borrowings—even if they are not from Australian institutes—are, in effect, taking up all the domestic borrowing that is available, and that is forcing the private borrowers offshore. So that is well in excess of $3 billion floating out of Australia that we have been able to save. And, of course, the taxation that Telstra pays, even though it is in private hands, is still paid. So there we are.

In 1983, when Labor took over, the Commonwealth debt—as we heard from the Treasurer (Mr Costello) only today in question time—was about $9 billion, being about six per cent, 5.6 per cent exactly, of GDP. In 1996, when we took over, the Commonwealth debt had soared tenfold, even more than tenfold, to $96 billion, being 20 per cent of GDP. It was almost getting into the Asian financial difficulty scenario.

Fortunately, we will be able to wind that back and, if we can make this sale, we can pay off 40 to 50 per cent, or more, of that debt. What a great thing that would be. Again, this is a case of the coalition taking over and straightening out Labor's economic mess. For that alone, it is worth privatising Telstra.

When we sold the first third of Telstra, so popular was it with the Australian people that it was five times oversubscribed, for heaven's sake. We could have sold the lot in one hit. Even of Telstra's employees, who tend to be somewhat militant in some instances and highly unionised, we were pleased to see that 92 per cent took up the offer to their advantage—and we are going to offer them similar deals next time. Already those who have taken up shares have had a capital gain of about 100 per cent—and good luck to them. On average, there were about 13,000 Telstra shareholders in every electorate, 4,000 of whom had never before owned a share in their life. I think that was really fabulous.

So the coalition, just by bringing this legislation forward, has focused on the deficiencies which still exist in Telstra. We have highlighted them, we have recognised them, and we have put up proposals and concrete legislation to improve and rectify them. These problems will not be solved overnight, but we are addressing them strongly. We are going to move forward to get a better deal for Australians, particularly regional Australians. This contrasts very sharply indeed with what the previous government did, which stagnated and ignored the deficiencies of Telstra. (Time expired)