Me thinks that the boss of Telstra is painting a horror scenario on Telstra in order to make the new shares low value so that new investors can buy the shares for less than they're worth... The honchos of the government looses but may smile because the telco is out of their hands, the T1 and T2 shareholders see nothing and the new shareholder win a little jackpot... Don't quote me on that... just a little buzzz in the back of my head...

The legislation the Government is introducing merely gives them the power to sell the remaining stake. It doesn't mean they have to sell any, let alone all, right away. They could wait until 2007 if they wanted. I doubt they will sell any of it at this price. I also doubt that Trujillo will still be in his job after the next AGM.

Quite frankly he appears to be grossly in breach of his fiduciary duties. His conduct has also been such as to materially adversely affect the reputation of Telstra, which is grounds for summary dismissal under clause 8.3(b) of his employment contract without penalties.

They might also look at cancelling his visa, which would place him in breach of clause 1.6 of his employment contract, although perhaps that is unhelpful since the contract has unfortunately been written in such a way that even wilful disobedience of instructions is not grounds for summary dismissal, without termination pay (and termination pay is 24 months - $6Million).

On the other hand he may be planning on getting sacked. He received a $2.5million cash sign-on bonus - a tidy sum for a couple of months, and how much is he paying his two amigos?