It is a great pleasure indeed to rise and support these amendments that are pressed on the Senate by the coalition. We do so because we think there is a very important principle involved here. When a government chooses to spend a great deal of taxpayers’ money—in this case perhaps $43 billion but in all likelihood a great deal more than that in light of what is in the part of this business plan we have seen. When a government spends so much taxpayers’ money it ought to be subject to scrutiny and it ought to be subject to oversight. It ought to be subject to the oversight of the parliament and it ought to be subject to the oversight of the agencies which have been established by governments over a long period of time to ensure transparency, to ensure that the objectives of the legislation are being achieved and to ensure that taxpayers’ money is being used for good purposes. That is what we have been aiming to secure and that is what these amendments seek to do.

These amendments seek to bring into the process from which the government has excluded them agencies such as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. We are anxious to have this legislation looked at. We do this because we are highly sceptical of the capacity of this government to spend taxpayers’ money in a responsible fashion. We have many, many examples of absolute abject failure in this area. Let me just remind the Senate of the failings of the Building the Education Revolution program, a $1.5 billion blow-out; the Home Insulation Program, another $1 billion wasted; the laptops in schools program, a $1 billion blow-out; the broadband network first iteration, $4.7 billion, replaced now by a $43 billion plan; and the broadband tender process, $220 million or thereabouts. There is a list. Every senator in this place knows what this list contains and every senator in this place should be embarrassed by the consequences of it. This is not just an arcane idea. It is not just steps we ought to take because we want to feel warm and fuzzy about the way in which we conduct the nation’s business. There are some key principles here.

There are two issues that are raised by the need for scrutiny and oversight. The first is a sad observation about the place we have reached in this country with regard to this legislation. For 25 years a succession of governments have committed themselves to economic reform. They have committed themselves to reform which has produced higher levels of productivity in this country, and that has made Australia a much more competitive and effective actor in the international system. I think we have argued this point consistently: the progress made under that reform and the changes that have taken place over this 25-year period allowed Australia to come through the global financial crisis in the way it did.

Those were not just the reforms of the Howard government. In fact, one could argue reasonably persuasively that many of the most effective reforms, many of the reforms that actually made the difference, were those that took place under the Hawke and Keating governments. Those reforms introduced oversight and competition into Australia, where in the past, sadly, there had not been much. They enforced the principle that competition should be an elemental part of the Australian economy, and they set up the agencies which would be necessary for that to occur.

So we have had a process of reform over a long period of time which has been bipartisan. Yet the Rudd-Gillard government has now reached the point where it is retarding that process of reform. It is a sad commentary on the state of the nation, and, most particularly, on the capacity of this government to see the way forward into the future, that the government cannot appreciate that this piece of legislation, by excluding the scrutiny we seek and precluding competition—that is inherent in the way in which this bill has been drafted—will set back that process of reform.

All we need to do is to think about the way in which the mobile phone market has expanded as a result of competition, how it has affected prices and provided efficiencies in that overall market. That is an interesting example of the way in which competition, allowed to occur and properly regulated, can indeed produce a great deal of efficiency for the Australian nation.

But of course this is not an argument that just I am seeking to make. It is not an argument that is uncommon out there. I refer the Senate to what I thought was a very compelling article by Mr Michael Stutchbury which appeared in the Weekend Australian of Saturday, 20 November. He raised this question and made this point. The article is headed ‘Gillard at forefront of the slide back to the bad old days of regulation’. I would invite every senator—particularly government senators—to read this article and pay close attention to its contents— and particularly you, Senator Lundy. You should pay close attention to its contents, because it actually provides a great deal of insight into the failures of this government and the consequences they are having for competition and productivity—most particularly productivity—in this country. In this article, Mr Stutchbury—eloquently, I thought—made this point:

"Virtually none of the acceleration in real national income growth in the 2000s has come from productivity growth, which has slumped to the weakest on record."

He is making the point that we need to do more to improve productivity. And this is not just Mr Stutchbury’s view; he looks to a report by the OECD.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is a highly respected organisation. We all know that there have been frequent occasions when ministers of this government have come into this chamber and cited the OECD as an authority for the decisions which have been made—as a foundation, one of wisdom and insight, for the policy changes which they have introduced. So this is an organisation with street cred on not only this side but also that side of the chamber. In the article, Mr Stutchbury says:

"… the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says Labor must put the brakes on the NBN so it can rethink a business model that would stifle competition by imposing a government-owned fibre optic monopoly."

And the Productivity Commission has made an similar point. But, in the way in which it has introduced this legislation to the Senate and progressed the matter ever since it conceived this crazy idea, the government has sought to avoid the Productivity Commission scrutinising the legislation in ways which would be entirely appropriate.

Mr Stutchbury—eloquently, as I have said—goes on to make the point that:

"… Labor’s NBN wholesale monopoly model legally kills off competition from Telstra’s existing copper network and its pay-TV cable while further limiting mobile cherry-picking."

He then cites the OECD. He says:

"The OECD points to “multiple empirical studies” …

So this is not just something that has been thrown out as a wild possibility—something that is not necessarily relevant. He says that the OECD’s empirical studies:

"… stress the pay-off from “competition between technological platforms”.

Here is an internationally respected organisation making a compelling case for the fact that, at the very heart of the productivity gains that we should be looking for in this country in the 21st century—particularly in the context of the introduction of new technologies—and at the very heart of the changes we make, we ought to have competition. And this bill absolutely denies that possibility; it denies us the chance to have that.

I think I heard earlier in the day my colleague Senator Ronaldson allude to—entirely appropriately, I thought—an article by Terry McCrann which appeared in the Courier-Mail this morning. Mr McCrann made a similar point about the costs and the failure to introduce competition into the network.

Mr McCrann’s credibility may not be very strong on the other side of the chamber, but there are other people who have a not dissimilar perspective. I cite once again the writing of Kevin Morgan in today’s Australian. Mr Morgan served on Kim Beazley’s ministerial committee on telecommunications reform. So, he is not a plant; he is someone who, one would think, has some credibility on the other side of the chamber. In his contribution to the debate, Mr Morgan asked:

"Was it worth holding out for and is the sketchy outline of the NBN’s business case sufficient to warrant the independent senator, and indeed the Senate at large, supporting the passage of the most far-reaching changes seen in any telecommunications market?"

He was asking the essential question. His answer is simple:

"Scarcely. The summary adds little to our understanding of the economics of the NBN that is not already outlined in the $25 million McKinsey implementation study, other than to stress the importance to the NBN of an effective national monopoly."

As I have done in relation to Mr Stutchbury’s article, I commend this article to the Senate and, in particular, to those on the government side. Mr Morgan says that this $43 billion enterprise—or is it $50 billion or is it a greater amount of money?—if it works, will only have the capacity to return any money to the government because at its core is a monopoly. At the very core of this enterprise is legislation which precludes the thing which has made Australia competitive, the thing which has made Australia a strong economy in the context of a world where economies are failing. A commitment to reform by not just one government but a succession of governments has put Australia into a position of economic strength. At the very core of that, at the very least, has been a commitment to productivity gains and at the very core of those productivity gains has been the capacity of the economy to produce competition. That is what we ought to be thinking about as we pass this legislation, as we think about this legislation, as we contemplate the consequences of this legislation. We ought to be thinking about the consequences of depriving the telecommunications industry of competition. Competition is central to the progress we have made over the last 25 years and it allowed us to come through the GFC.