The Federal Government Finance Minister is living in 'wonderland' in claiming that Telstra should be sold to deliver more competition, given the repeated warnings by the ACCC that Telstra already has too much market power, according to the Australian Democrats.
Democrat Communications spokesperson Senator John Cherry, said he was astounded that in response to his question in the Senate today, Minister Minchin said "we have a highly competitive field in telecommunications, and Telstra should be sold to enhance it".
"From what part of wonderland is the Minister getting his advice that telecommunications is competitive, when only two days ago the ACCC issued a notice on Telstra alleging the communications carrier was engaging in anti-competitive conduct on broadband wholesale pricing," Senator Cherry said.
"Last year, the ACCC reported to the Government that the telecommunications market was not as competitive as the Government expected and major structural changes were needed to be made to Telstra to reduce its massive market power.
"The Minister claims that it is regulation, not ownership that counts. But the Government has repeatedly refused to give the ACCC the powers it says it needs to deal with misuse of market power, including the power to order the break-up of large monopolies.
"The Australian people deserve better than policy based on hyperbole so at odds with the real facts on the ground from the Minister charged with protecting public finances.
"The privatisation of Telstra would remove a significant break on Telstra's market power and would be a retrograde step, given this Government's continuing refusal to take the advice of the regulators and move to reduce the market power of the Telstra giant.
"After all, that might reduce the share price, and at the end of the day, it seems the Government's policy regarding Telstra is more concerned with the returns to investors than the cost of telecommunication services to consumers," Senator Cherry concluded.
|
