Senator SCHACHT (10:19 PM) —We have just seen in this last hour the most disgraceful performance by the government as they gagged through a procedural arrangement with no debate. I must say that, in my 11 years in the Senate, I do not think I have seen that happen before. I am surprised that someone such as Senator Harradine, who has always been a great advocate of the procedures and of the Senate as the house of review, would vote consistently to gag a debate over procedure matters. I only hope that this does not predicate that he has already done a deal with the government on the Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 1998 .

I must say that today we saw the scurrying around in the government benches as they did their deals. In fact today during the middle of a division, the Minister for Communications, the Information Economy and the Arts (Senator Alston) called Senator Harradine over when they were voting together. They chatted away.

Senator Hill —That is a terrible thing to do, isn't it?

Senator SCHACHT —No. Unfortunately, for Senator Harradine, because he was attracted by the attention of Senator Alston, he did not realise that he voted against an opposition amendment that would have delivered $3 million of funding to fisheries in Tasmania. He was more interested in getting the latest word from Senator Alston than protecting the interests of his own constituents in Tasmania.

Senator Ian Campbell —Madam Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: it may not have been brought to Senator Schacht's attention, but we are debating the Telstra bill. He has been speaking for two minutes now and he has not even considered this. He seems to be highlighting the fact that he is a hypocrite for having voted continuously for gags during his term in government—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Crowley) —Order! Senator Campbell—

Senator Ian Campbell —So I ask you to draw his attention to the standing order relating to relevance.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Campbell, firstly, you will withdraw that unparliamentary remark about Senator Schacht.

Senator Ian Campbell —The one about him being a hypocrite?

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —That is the one.

Senator Ian Campbell —I withdraw it.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Secondly, you know that there is no point of order. I call Senator Schacht.

Senator Ian Campbell —On the point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President: I would ask you to rule on relevance. Senator Schacht has spent two minutes talking about procedural motions and a bill that passed through this place today. I guess he is reflecting on a vote, so that is the second standing order he is flouting. I would ask you to rule that his speech should be relevant to the debate on the Telstra bill and that he should not talk about another bill or a procedural vote of this place.

Senator SCHACHT —On the point of order: I would have thought it was quite relevant to talk about the way the Telstra bill was brought into the Senate tonight, after unprecedented gagging arrangements—

Senator Carr —Three times.

Senator SCHACHT —Yes, three times. There was no debate on any of the matters—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Senator Schacht, what is your point of order?

Senator SCHACHT —My point of order is that it is quite relevant to talk about the process of how this bill was brought on in the Senate, and I think it is quite relevant to talk about it in a speech on the second reading.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Crowley) —There is no point of order.

Senator SCHACHT —I was explaining the unprecedented way this bill was brought on. When the contingency motion was moved by the Manager of Government Business in the Senate (Senator Ian Campbell), a number of speakers on this side of the House spoke against it. They all pointed out that there is no urgency for this bill because, if it is carried, according to the Prime Minister (Mr Howard), if you can trust his promises, it will not be proclaimed until after the next election, if he wins the election.

There is no urgency. The only urgency has to be a political deal between the forces in the coalition, and we have also been accused of filibustering other bills so this bill would not be brought on. For the last 2½ days, this bill was dropped to the bottom of the Senate red. It was not brought on for a very simple reason. As we saw in one division, Senator Alston came sprinting in from a cabinet meeting, sat down next to Senator O'Chee and showed him a document from cabinet obviously about some arrangement for funding in the bush. That was what was going on.

Until Senator O'Chee, Senator Boswell and the other National Party senators gave Senator Alston the tick, he was not game to bring the bill on. In the end, they did their deal, of which only a minor part was announced today—there will be more announcements in the next few days by two-minute Tim, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.

Senator O'Chee —On a point of order: it is quite unparliamentary to use anything other than the appropriate phrase to refer to the Deputy Prime Minister. Senator Schacht knows that. It is just part of his inflammatory remarks, and I suggest that it be withdrawn. In fact, I insist it be withdrawn.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Senator Schacht, could you refer to our parliamentary colleagues by their proper name, please.

Senator SCHACHT —Thank you, I will, Madam Acting Deputy President. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Tim Fischer) today took over the press conference of the minister for communications when they announced the analog decision. You have never seen a more pathetic spectacle on the television screen. The Deputy Prime Minister was standing there telling the minister for communications, `Hold the mobile phone, Richard. This is what it looks like. This is what one of the new phones looks like.' Every time Richard, the minister for communications—Mr Fischer called him Richard—was asked to say something, Mr Fischer would interject. It was a pathetic performance. It gave no information about the detail of the new mobile telephone system, but that is supposed to be the first arrangement. Mr Fischer said that tomorrow he will give the first chapter of what the bush is going to get.

Before I get to the actual deal that may be speculated about, I also want to draw attention, particularly Senator Harradine's, to advice that Senator Lees and I have received from the Clerk Assistant (Procedure) in the Senate, Rosemary Laing. This is a letter that has already been made freely available to the press, as these letters are entitled to be. It talks about what we are dealing with—legislation that will be carried and then proclaimed at an unnamed, unstated date some time after the next election. The letter, which I will seek leave to table later on, says:

These provisions effectively provide for the open-ended commencement of the major policy decision contained in the Bill.

There has long been parliamentary disquiet about this kind of open-ended commencement provision because it hands a blank cheque to the executive to determine whether the legislation passed by the Parliament is actually going to come into effect.

In my 11 years here, Senator Harradine has consistently argued about process, about protecting the powers of the Senate, that issues come in here to be voted on and that you do not hand power off to the executive. The Clerk Assistant (Procedure) has made it quite clear that, if Senator Harradine votes for this bill, he is going against the procedures of the Senate. In fact, the Senate passed a motion in 1988 requiring the government to table a list of acts or provisions of acts which remained unproclaimed, together with explanations for the failure to proclaim them. (Quorum formed)

What has been put forward here is unprecedented. It is not an urgent bill. If the Prime Minister is actually fair dinkum and is telling the truth, there is no reason for this bill to be put into place now. If the Prime Minister wins the next election, he will then claim his mandate, have the debate and put it through. I think we now know why he has put this proposal forward. There are two reasons we know of as to why this proposal came out of the blue back in the middle of March. There was no cabinet decision. There was no cabinet document from the minister for communications or any other minister proposing the full sale or the privatisation of Telstra. It was done off the cuff by the Prime Minister in time for the national convention of the Liberal Party to take the attention away from the grave difficulties Senator Parer found himself in over his conflict of interest. That was the first and only reason the Prime Minister came up with this stunt. It was to turn attention away from his own political difficulties.

The next reason this is now capturing the Prime Minister's attention is in view of the holocaust on the National Party in Queensland at the last state election. Since the Queensland election, there has been not only in Queensland but right across Australia a range of public opinion polls that show that One Nation is going to take the baseball bat to the National Party in rural Australia. The Prime Minister realises he has a better chance of getting this bill through now under the present numbers in this Senate, even if he squeaks back into office after the next election. I think the way the polls are showing at the moment there will be a clear-cut majority by Kim Beazley at the next election. (Quorum formed)

The Prime Minister wants this bill to go through so that, if he scrapes back into the parliament with a very small majority at the best for him and a Senate that will be significantly different, he will be able to proclaim the bill. I think what he is now facing, which all the opinion polls show, is that there is a real chance that, after the next election, if it is not a clear-cut majority with a Beazley Labor government, it will be a minority Howard government with One Nation House of Representatives members sitting on the crossbenches in the House of Representatives, replacing National Party House of Representatives members. It will be a minority government, but he will still be able to proclaim the bill.

Senator Alston —Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. How could Senator Schacht's ramblings about One Nation and National parties and all sorts of press conferences have even the slightest thing to do with the debate on the Telstra bill?

Senator Schacht —On the point of order: I was outlining the political background of why the Prime Minister, in fear and loathing, has brought this legislation forward. That is an absolutely relevant thing to talk about in the speech on the second reading of this bill.

Senator Alston —There is nothing in the bill about motivation. This bill is about the principle of privatisation. We know the Labor Party are dead scared because in government they privatised everything that moved, and we know Mr Beazley has said time and again that he is in favour of privatising Telstra. That is what the issue is about, not all this other nonsense.

Senator Bartlett —On the point of order: in relation to the first part, obvious the only reason we are debating this bill tonight is One Nation and the government's fear of it. In terms of the second part, I would ask you to rule Senator Alston out of order on a spurious point of order.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Chapman) —You are out of order, Senator Bartlett.

Senator Brown interjecting—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I am ruling on the point of order; I do not need any further help, Senator Brown. It has always been the practice for speeches on the second reading to range fairly widely; nevertheless, Senator Schacht, you should make sure that your comments are relevant to the bill. I will listen carefully to the comments that you make.

Senator Brown —Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order: I would ask you to rule on the point of order made by Senator Alston whereupon he entered, having not been in the chamber during Senator Schacht's full delivery—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I have ruled on the point of order, Senator Brown.

Senator Brown —No, this is a new point of order. You could not have ruled on the point of order I am making now, which is that, in the a request for a point of order, he entered into a lengthy debate himself. And that is quite out of order, as you know, Mr Acting Deputy President.

Senator Alston —On the point of order: I take the strongest exception to the proposal that I was not in the chamber during Senator Schacht's speech. Unfortunately, I have had to listen to every word of it.

Senator Schacht —That is not a point of order. The minister is not making a comment on any section of standing orders at all.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I might suggest that each of the points of order raised and the other comments in relation to those points of order have been frivolous. I would remind senators not to raise frivolous points of order. Let us get on with the debate.

Senator SCHACHT —So we know why the Prime Minister brought this bill on. Secondly, we know why the National Party had to be bought off—because of the fear and loathing amongst the National Party members out in the bush, knowing they are about to be decimated on this issue and a number of other issues; because of their abject failure over the last 40 to 50 years to deliver any economic good, any economic benefit, to the people who have loyally voted for them. That is why One Nation is now taking baseball bats to them—as the former Premier of Queensland once described, unfortunately, the Labor Party in Queensland at the last federal election. The baseball bats are now out in the bush against the National Party.

Now we know there has been a deal done. It has not been announced in time for this debate. While some amount of money might get announced tomorrow when the Deputy Prime Minister is wandering around somewhere in rural Australia, there will be no detail. Other detail will be held back until the actual election campaign. I do not know how you can ask senators to support a bill when the details—the deal that you have had to do—will not be available to the rest of the Senate. It has been done in private. It has been done in private, I presume, with the Independent senators; it has been done in private with the National Party. People are being asked to vote here, sight unseen, on the most important issue of privatisation this country has ever faced—the privatisation of Australia's biggest, most profitable and most successful company that provides over 90 per cent of telecommunications services to all Australians.

It is no wonder the bush is up in arms. I happened to read the West Australian newspaper yesterday that said a survey of the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia—I would have thought that if there was one Labor voter amongst them that would be a generous estimate—found that 91 per cent of pastoralists and graziers were opposed to the privatisation of Telstra. So the bush is in flames over this issue. But the dopey members of the National Party have done a deal, have been bought off and have sold out their constituents.

When the issue comes up in the coming election in the next two or three months, we in the Labor Party will enjoy going around the bush pointing out how the National Party, for a start, sold out to the Liberal Party. Why doesn't the National Party surrender now and merge with the Liberal Party and get the job over with? That is why those voters are going—in many ways in a misguided way—off to One Nation. They are sick and tired of the National Party and rural Liberals who have sold them out.

Since the Prime Minister announced this decision for the full privatisation of Telstra in mid March of this year, in the first week every political commentator said, `What a genius. What a brilliant move. What a stunning move by the Prime Minister.' It will get him back on the front foot because the hapless Warwick Parer was destroying the government's reputation. But every published opinion poll taken since then—no matter where in Australia, whether nationwide, city wide, state wide, by margins of two to one or three to one—has shown that ordinary Australians totally oppose the further privatisation of Telstra. But this government, for ideological reasons, wants to go ahead with this.

Senator Alston interjecting—

Senator SCHACHT —We hear the Minister for Communications, the Information Economy and the Arts interjecting. He is a doormat for the Prime Minister. He did not even know the Prime Minister was going to announce the decision at the national conference of the Liberal Party in Brisbane.

Senator Alston —Oh really!

Senator SCHACHT —Absolutely.

Senator Alston —You mean I wasted my time talking to him all that time.

Senator SCHACHT —You did not even put a cabinet submission in. There was no cabinet submission. There was no cabinet discussion.

Senator Alston —That is true.

Senator SCHACHT —That is very true, because the Prime Minister, off the cuff, decided to take the decision.

Senator Alston —Absolutely untrue.

Senator SCHACHT —That is typical of the process of this government on most things it tries to handle. There is no process. It is done on the run, off the cuff, trying to get over difficulties this government has in the wider community.

One of the major arguments this government uses in favour of privatisation is to reduce national debt. I just want to point out that, on present indications, if Telstra is privatised and a further $40-odd billion is raised and is used to substantially pay off public debt—although I think because of negotiations we now are seeing more of it going sideways into carpet bags to pay off various sectional interests in the bush or anywhere else—it is true that if you take the current bond rate of around six per cent, assuming a reduction of public debt of $40 million, the interest saving would be around $2.4 billion, six per cent of the $40 billion.

A number of independent financial analysts, who are in favour of privatisation, by the way, have projected that Telstra's dividend will grow at around 15 per cent per annum. That means that by the year 2002 the dividend to the Commonwealth government should exceed $2.4 billion. That means that by selling the rest of Telstra the government will benefit for the first four or five years but after that it would lose the dividend forever, because no-one anywhere in telecommunications will say that Telstra will be anything other than an increasingly profitable company.

One of the things we have seen in the last two years from the impact of privatisation is that 27,000 people have been sacked from Telstra. Telstra have admitted at estimates committees that that saves them each year and every year thereafter $600 million of costs. Where is that going? Under the government's proposal that will go to the lucky shareholders. There may be one million of them. There may be 1½ million of them—35 per cent of them will be foreign. But the rest of Australia's 17-odd million people will dip out and not get anything, and in five years time they will be behind because of this government's decision.

The communities will have to pay the cost of the impact of the social distress of 27,000 people being sacked, but the $600 million will go towards dividend payments. You would have thought at the very least that the $600 million would in the future, by way of dividend, go back into the public purse, not just for three or four years but every year thereafter. So when the minister announces in the next day or so that he may spend up to $1 billion extra on rural telecommunications, we ought to point out that $600 million alone is coming from the sacked 27,000 workers.

We also ought to point out that every year in the bush Telstra, as stated in their annual report, are spending over $800 million on capital works. So any amount of money—$100 million here or $200 million there—is going to be insignificant for the long-term needs of telecommunications in this country. We argue that while Telstra will supply over 90 per cent of telecommunications in Australia—and in rural areas up to 100 per cent for the foreseeable future—it is better to have that in public ownership so the public, through their elected parliament and elected government, can argue how Telstra should plan and provide the services.

We have seen what will happen to all the minister's promises about increased customer service guarantee when only last week a report came out on the monitoring from the Australian Telecommunications Authority. In the first 12 months of one-third privatisation, across the board services in the bush went down between 10 and 20 per cent from connecting times to reporting of fixing of faults. No wonder people in the bush do not trust this government and its promises that it will fix up the customer service guarantee and be able to cater for that when it is fully privatised.

What did we see two days ago in Darwin? Frank Blount, the Chief Executive of Telstra, warned the government—and, in one sense, I appreciate his honesty—that they cannot take money out of Telstra for social needs or fiddle around with it because that would affect profit and commercial viability. We make no bones about it in the Labor Party that when this organisation is providing 90 per cent of communications to ordinary Australians we do want to be able to say to that organisation, and will say, `You will do certain things in the public good.' This minister has never told Telstra to fix it up. The ERCA committee, of which I am a member, has been dealing with these dreadful CoT cases; Telstra has dealt with them for the last couple of years. Even today we had to have a special private meeting with Telstra to try to find a resolution.

Senator Alston —It doesn't sound too private if you're blabbing about it.

Senator SCHACHT —We had a case where Telstra had been told by the court to pay a Mrs Garms, a close friend of Senator Boswell, $300,000. This minister refused to back the court.

Senator Alston —Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. Is this abuse of the parliament for Senator Schacht to be disclosing the deliberations of a private meeting?

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Chapman) —There is no point of order, Minister.

Senator SCHACHT —I have not disclosed anything about that private meeting and will not. I have disclosed to you, Minister, what took place in the estimates public hearings. You even wrote a letter to Telstra saying, `Pay Mrs Garms the money.' What did Telstra do? They ripped it up and threw it on the floor. You could not even get them to pay the money. That is how weak and spineless you are.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Schacht, please address your remarks through the chair.

Senator SCHACHT —Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that is how weak and spineless this minister is in dealing with Telstra. He will not lift a finger—except that we got this announcement today that the Telstra board have made a commercial decision over the new mobile phone system. Of course, this was to get the government off the hook. This decision was made by management who favour privatisation so they are going to do this deal. But the point is that even that would not have been done if Telstra had been fully privatised. A fully privatised Telstra would have told the minister, `Go jump! We are not going to put a new commercial mobile phone system in in Australia.' They would not have done any of it. They would have laughed at you as they have before. This is the most spineless, weak-kneed minister of communications we have had in this country. Telstra tramples on him all the time and ignores him.

Senator Alston —But you would have stood up to them, wouldn't you?

Senator SCHACHT —Absolutely. That is the difference, Minister. You have no courage. You roll over and say, `I am not going to do anything to direct Telstra, even for the public good.' That is why we believe that Telstra must always be maintained in public ownership—so that people will benefit.