New CEO and Chairman at Telstra

[Jovial Monk]

This team now has to work hard and reverse the idiot Trujillo's policy of antagonising the govt & regulator. He has managed to slash about 2/3 off Telstra's share price.

Their future is pretty bleak: they will be just one of the many independent retailers on the NBN. They will be able to still sell mobile phones and have the telephone directories though even these could change. For sure they are about to lose their monopoly and good thing too: they have not invested in infrastructure and so many people are on pair gain as a result and not able to access ADSL and, like me at home, have to limp along on slow, expensive wireless.

[Leftofcentresalterego]

The privatisation of Telstra - just another example of the mal-administration of the Howard era. Privatise a public-held natural monopoly (and convince Australians to buy shares in something they had already owned), and you have to engineer and permanently enforce artificial competition. And we've still had nothing but problems: thousands of workers sacked, failure to properly invest in the future - even the share price was shot to shit. And for all this, some little Mexican grub of a manager rewarded himself for "outstanding performance" with giant bonuses before choofing back off again.

Anyone who can give the performance of Telstra since privatisation anything but an F for "Fucked-up failure" deserves to be hit on the head.

Telecommunications were a vital public good which the privatising of served no overall benificial purpose to the nation.

When the full privatisation was announced, I remember reading that Telstra would now perform outstandingly on all fronts, now that "the millstone of public ownership had been removed from round it's neck". I think it was The Australian's Micheal Sutchbury. Might dust off the baseball bat and pay him a visit.

I have finally mastered the merge! Thanks to exhalted leader Boxy.

[Jovial Monk]

The merge?

[Leftofcentresalterego]

Is that you merging Hebe?

[Hebe]

Yep. All OK?