Howard Rort - Telstra Inquiry Rigged

Date: 20 March 2000

Shadow Minister for Communications, Stephen Smith, today said that the Government's proposed Telstra Inquiry was a John Howard rort and rigged from the start.

"Minister for Communications, Richard Alston, today announced the details of the Government's proposed Telstra inquiry, despite a Coalition election commitment to establish the inquiry by legislation," Mr Smith said.

"Today's announcement was foreshadowed late last week in the Parliament.

John Howard evaded my question about the Government's election commitment that the inquiry would be established by the Parliament. He has now broken that commitment in order to get the answer he wants to help his push for the full privatisation of Telstra.

"As well, the Minister is making a mockery of the commitment that this would be an independent inquiry," Mr Smith said.

"The perception is that there's nothing independent about it.

"Irrespective of the personal merits and qualities of the individual members, the view will be that the panel is stacked. The Minister has appointed a former National Party Member of Parliament, and a member of a panel overseeing the disbursement of proceeds from the partial privatisation of Telstra.

"I agree with the view of the Queensland Division of the National Party, reported over the weekend as saying "an inquiry now is premature, because
everyone knows it will find that service delivery is sub-standard, and if it doesn't, it's a whitewash".

"The terms of reference have not been subject to the scrutiny of the Parliament, despite the Government expressly promising that the performance criteria for the inquiry would be so detailed.

"For the Minister to claim that the inquiry will use the existing Customer Service Guarantee standards as performance criteria simply denies the fact that Telstra is not currently meeting these standards.

"Every Australian Communications Authority telecommunications performance monitoring bulletin details the percentage of connections and fault repairs that fall outside the standards.

"As recently as last December, the ACA found "systemic problems" in regard to Telstra meeting service levels, which continue to be in breach of
legislated Customer Service Guarantee standards.
"As well, the terms of reference for the inquiry seek to predict "services to be offered" and "the likely future impact" of the Government's bribes to the bush from Telstra's partial privatisation.

"These are clearly matters of subjective opinion, and can not be seen to provide benchmarks of performance criteria by which to judge existing
problems with Telstra service levels.

"This announcement today only confirms the fears of those living in rural and regional Australia - the Government's promises about an independent
inquiry were never intended to be kept, the results will be a rort, and the Government will simply use the whitewash to push for the full sale of Telstra," Mr Smith concluded.

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