Legislation designed to bring about a radical restructuring of Telstra was introduced into the Senate on 25 February but will not now be dealt with until March.

The Bill contains amendments to telecommunications competition laws designed to strengthen the hand of the ACCC and amendments to consumer protections which tighten up the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and Customer Service Guarantee (CSG) schemes.

But the parts of the Bill that overshadow all others are those that require either the structural or functional separation of Telstra.

These provisions are in turn closely linked to the Government’s planned NBN roll-out. They are designed to encourage Telstra to “voluntarily” migrate its wholesale traffic across to NBN Co as its fibre network is rolled out, thus ensuring that the NBN has at least one major customer from Day 1. If such a scheme can’t be agreed upon within 90 days of the Bill becoming law, Telstra will face functional separation, divestiture of its HFC and Foxtel assets and spectrum starvation.

However, as reported previously, reaching an agreement on this traffic transfer that meets the needs of NBN Co, Telstra and the Government is proving to be no easy task, with both Telstra CEO David Thodey and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy recently stressing the complexity of the issues.

Given this recognition, it must be asked what purpose is served by bringing on the legislation at this time.

The Government has released draft legislation covering the ownership and operations of the NBN for public comment.

The legislation is designed to codify the policies that the Government outlined last April when it first announced the $43 billion project.

These include:

• NBN to be a wholesale-only network;

• Government to retain majority ownership until the project is deemed to be complete (a period of 8 years has been flagged;

• Full privatisation within 5 years of completion.

All these policies are contained in the Bill – but they are by no means watertight. The sell down timetable, for instance, can be varied in line with market conditions.

That’s a sensible enough provision.

The aspect of the Bill that has provoked most comment, however, is the discretion given to the Minister to allow NBN Co to offer services to customers other than retail telecommunications carriers.

This would allow NBN Co to offer services to state and federal government departments, for instance – but also, potentially, to any other customer the Minister determines.

The Minister will have an equally free hand on “content” services e.g. movies, games. NBN Co is not supposed to offer these either – unless the Minister determines otherwise.

Commentators have seen these Ministerial powers as putting another card in the Government’s hands in its ongoing negotiations with Telstra: “Come to an agreement or we will compete directly against you for government contracts.” But these provisions might also be read as being designed to allow the Government to vary the NBN business model if its wholesale-only model runs into difficulties.

If this occurs and NBN Co is forced at some time in the future to move higher up the value chain – as many commentators believe it will – it will not only be Telstra which feels the competitive pressure. The squeeze will come on Optus as well and on all the smaller players who have looked to the NBN to boost their own businesses, not compete against them.

It is not always good to get what you wish for.

Recent statement by Opposition leaders show that Tony Abbott is determined to wind back the industrial relations clock and introduce WorkChoices #2.

In the space of a few weeks, members of Abbot’s team have said they will:

Remove unfair dismissal protections for employees in enterprises with fewer than 20 staff. This would mean some 2.3 million workers –one in four – would lose their current rights and have no protection.

Reintroduce individual workplace agreements. At a recent employer function in Queensland, Abbott told his listeners that the Coalition would seek to reintroduce “statutory non-Union contracts.”

Target penalty rates. According to Julie Bishop “inflexible conditions such as the penalty rates regime is costing employers more, it is making workers worse off”.

Scrap minimum hours requirements for shift workers. The ACTU says the move would threaten the income and job security of 2.5 million casual workers.

In 2007, the Australian voters sent a clear message to the Howard Government about its extreme industrial relations agenda. But it seems that Tony Abbott still doesn’t get it. For all his talk about WorkChoices being dead and buried it is clear that he and other members of his team remain deeply committed to the Howard approach.

As the Federal election draws closer, the anti-worker character of the Abbott team will become more evident but even now working Australians should have no illusions about the Opposition’s agenda.