From the SMH
September 7, 2005
A confidential Telstra briefing paper reveals the company has been borrowing billions of dollars to pay dividends instead of spending on a network that has deteriorated to the point where one in seven phone lines is faulty.

WHOA...

Could this happen here, after the full privatisation of essential infrastructure?
From Why New Orleans Cell Phones Aren't Working

... So even if you and your friend were sitting in the same room in California, your call would bounce across the country, and might get hung up on a drowned switch in New Orleans. (Both land-line and cell-phone switches have been affected by the flood.) On the other hand, your friend could probably call you. ...

We won't have a clue how our calls are managed, but the technology and tools will be the cheapest, and the technical knowhow will be of the highest standard that can be bought in Shanghai.

So, I'm glad you included the balloons, Gus, 'cos when they go up, in a crisis, guess where the staff of Telco Inc will be headed? Lashed to the switchboard? Not on yer life.

And it's a good thing you indicated the location of the privy, 'cos when taxpayers are left holding a sack of sh*t, that deep dark hole in the ground will be mighty handy.

Hang on, a faint call coming in from Aceh ... "it couldn't happen here" ... oh, alright, that's reassurance!  

Can I chuck Costello down there, already?

The letter in The Age (7/9) by Valerie Yule, Telstra sale push getting curiouser and curiouser got into The Australian, too.
...It would be far wiser for the Government to be able to ensure that the management of Telstra is competent and dedicated to service, working in co-operation with other companies, than to split up a natural monopoly in a small country, and to have competition that can only survive by duplicating and competing for the most profitable sections of the market and abandoning the needs of the rest. ...

The fact that the government knew of share and dividend manipulation by Telstra way before other shareholders simply amount to a massive insider trading if the government go ahead with the sale of its portfolio on this company... whether or not it is up to the company honchos to divulge this to the market.

From the SMH

Prime Minister John Howard has denied he dudded Telstra's shareholders by keeping secret details about the telco's problems, saying his hands were legally tied.

Labor launched a fierce attack on Mr Howard today for failing to release a secret Telstra document handed to him and senior cabinet ministers last month detailing a string of problems plaguing the telco.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has begun investigating whether Telstra broke stock market rules by only giving the document to the government instead of all its 1.6 million shareholders.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said Mr Howard should have told Telstra's mum and dad investors the truth about the telco giant.

"Prime Minister, wasn't the right thing to do to ensure that Telstra released to all Australians the information the prime minister received about Telstra's state on the 11th of August," he said.

GUS THINKS THAT SUCH NEWS WOULD HAVE HAD TO BE KNOWN WAY BEFORE AUGUST ELEVEN (MAYBE AS EARLY AS MID-LAST YEAR OR BEFORE) . BUT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD HAVE FORCED THE CEO OF TELSTRA TO RELEASE THE SAME INFORMATION IT GOT, TO EVERYONE. OTHERWISE THE GOVERNMENT WOULD BECOME AN ACCOMPLICE IN THE GRAND DECEPTION. IT DI D BECOME PART OF THE DECEPTION..

That Johnnee says that the government is taking care of mums and dads who have invested in Telstra is ludicrous and irresponsible. The share price when bought was about $7 plus now it is barely $4 plus. What a joke of taking care.... !