Newsroom

May 21, 2024

WITH mountains of constituent complaints against Telstra’s service piling through his office, Kennedy MP Bob Katter has doubled down on his calls for the telco to be nationalised as it announces the axing of 2800 jobs.

The move is expected to save Telstra $350m and Mr Katter said the service provider could not be blamed for “maximising profits at the expense of customers, especially in rural and regional areas.” [1]

“But it’s a real slap in the face for every one of their North Queensland customers, paying premium prices for, what should be adequate universal service,” Mr Katter said.

“Will this help the people of Julia Creek and the mid-west, or Burketown, Doomadgee, Normanton and the rest of the Gulf, or even Innisfail and Mission Beach, and they’re not some tiny backwater towns – that’s a population of 30,000.

“There would be hundreds of complaints in my office – people are fed up paying for a service they’re not receiving and they’re fed up with Telstra’s excuses like ‘there’s too much demand on the network’. Well how about instead of cutting jobs, you increase your network.

“Now because the government doesn’t control them anymore, we can’t tell them what do you, and they’ll continue maximising profits.”

Mr Katter said he recalled when former Prime Minister John Howard made the decision to privatise Telstra, and the assured the North Queensland MP of a “universal service obligation.”

“Well Mr Prime Minister, you were wrong, I was right. Even in suburban areas, Telstra’s reception is lacking, so what chance do we stand out in the bush?”

He said he had been recently informed by the current Minister for Communications of a flaw in the legislation overseeing the “universal service obligation” and that it only applied to landlines. Mr Katter said he would continue working with the minister to ensure that mobile service was included in the blatantly outdated principle.

Further, Mr Katter said he would be writing to the Communications Minister and the Treasurer to trigger a Foreign Investment Review Board investigation into the ownership of Telstra – with the major shareholder being – HSBC – Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation – raising questions of national security and a foreigner’s unwillingness to oblige by the universal service obligation.

“Essential services, must, be provided for by government – water, sewerage, electricity, and telecommunications. There are others, but these are the basics.

“In our case in North Queensland, with frequent cyclones and flooding, it can be a matter of life and death – either you get to make the call for help, or you don’t.

“But for our businesses, which are some of this nation’s wealth generators, their losses can be colossal. A banana grower whose cooler storage shed is down, electricity line is down, they can’t ring up the electricity provider or the transport operator to move their produce. The entire crop is lost.

“I could give you another 100 examples.”

North Queensland’s gripe with Telstra

Below are examples of frustrations and complaints on Telstra, Mr Katter’s constituents have shared with himself and his office:

• Telstra do not properly notify constituents of outages, and instead rely on stakeholders to notify of changes – such as local councils and MP offices.
• A large volume of complaints from constituents not being able to talk to anyone at Telstra to discuss their issues (job cuts are expected to include offshoring and transition to AI).
• Telstra often tell customers “there is increase on the network” that’s why the network isn’t performing.
• Go to response from Telstra for poor reception is too many people are using the service now or they need to purchase a $2000 (on top of the premium monthly bill they’re paying).

“If some part of the network is not functioning then they should notify the affected customers and make recompense instead of counting on not every affected customer making a complaint and thus mitigating any potential loss. Communications these days are an essential service and I am sure some people were a lot more impacted than me and when  a provider decides not to inform people of potential outages it could easily have a tragic outcome for someone, and its Telstra. Better ethics are required” – (Cardwell)

“Our mobile network is an essential service, especially during such an active wet season. Any interruption to the service needs prompt and effective repair, and a genuine effort by Telstra to reliably inform its customers about the fault and progress of repair. Telstra did not meet that standard” – (Innisfail).

[1] Telstra to axe 2800 jobs, majority to happen by end of 2024 |