I am wondering if the government has left a high court trap for
itself. The blackmailing clause "Do what we want or no RF spectrum
for you" will give an out to Telstra.

I know that nominally ACMA can refuse a licence to any spectrum but it
is not likely to have ever been to a show cause hearing in the High Court.

I have Telstra ADSL with 1.2 Megabit rate.
The NBN with its 100 Megabit rate will do nothing for me or the 100s
of thousands like me, as the extra 1 millisecond I might have to wait
for a page on screen is undetectable.
The time needed is made up by my machines speed and the remote servers
machine and almost nothing in network. International connections
probably add a bit, but nothing compared to busy servers elsewhere.

Television stations will be the big gainers because they will use the
NBN for picture transmission. Kerry Stokes and company stand up !

I will never use them again they stole from me.
And in a free market economy we must hurt some for the benefit of most.
It was our dollars that made telstra the biggest and if we are to get better services cheaper too roll on Rudd.

*You're forgetting that super funds have the advantage of not having to put all their eggs in one basket!*

Rob, I'm not forgetting that at all, for if you check it out, its
super funds who have 1 trillion $ of workers savings and yes its
broadly invested in many companies, Telstra being just one of them.

A good chunk of Telstra was also handed over to the future fund,
so taxpayers will eventually wear the increased loss there.

But if you are saying that its ok for workers to write off many
billions from their nesteggs, because the Govt changed its mind and
the rules, but it won't matter as there are plenty billions left,
well so be it.

But at the end of the day, its still billions coming out of workers
nesteggs, most are just not aware of it.

RobP, you stagger me. You agree that it is theft, but argue it is OK because it enhances competition. Well, if that competition is such a good thing, wouldn't you be prepared to pay for it, rather than expect the person who owns the right you want to pre-empt to pay for it for you?

You also suggest that because superannuation funds take out insurance against bad investments by holding a basket of them, that it doesn't or might not matter to them. That is a bit like saying that because I take out insurance I shouldn't worry if someone burgles my house. It would be hard to imagine that the losses they might face in the Telstra part of their portfolio will be more than compensated for by an increase in competition which will be spread over the whole economy.

I think underlying some of the attitudes on this thread is the idea that we made a bad decision in privatising Telstra the way we did, so we should be able to unwind it without paying a penalty because the people who bought the right from us in the first place should have known we might renege. To my mind the correct approach, if we decide the original mistake was that bad, is to offer them a fair price, not just take.

The share price seems to have recovered to where it was a week ago i.e. pre announcement levels.

Is all right with the world now? Bugger what the people think as long as the market ticks off on it.

From the micro to the macro.

Yabby says:

"A good chunk of Telstra was also handed over to the future fund,
so taxpayers will eventually wear the increased loss there."

My early understanding of the Future Fund was that it was intended as a source of future benefit for ALL Australians, by way of diversified investment in much the same way as a superannuation fund would operate. It was only after the legislation for the complete sell-off of Telstra finally passed in the Senate that I understood the Future Fund to be essentially the superannuation fund of only Commonwealth parliamentarians and the Commonwealth public service.

It is also my understanding that what was handed over to the Future Fund was a substantial part of the PROCEEDS of the sale of Telstra, not a share of Telstra itself. If my understanding is correct, unless the Future Fund has subsequently re-invested to a substantial extent in Telstra, then what happens to Telstra and its shareholders as a result of this present, or any other, proposal is a matter of supreme indifference to the beneficiaries of the Future Fund, who are NOT the taxpayers at large.

Yabby is probably right in saying that taxpayers will wear the loss that this present seeming intended expropriation of Telstra will incur, but that loss to taxpayers at large will presumably occur through the government expenditure upon duplication of capability in establishing the National Broadband Network.

It is interesting that the market apparently 'thinks' that Telstra SHAREHOLDERS will not be particularly disadvantaged, if the rally in share price is in any way rationally based. What does the 'market' know that we don't? Could it be that the government intends, instead of incurring expenditure upon duplication of capabilities, to buy back from Telstra the capability that it, Telstra, already possesses but refuses to deploy? In which case Telstra shareholders AT THE TIME THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS will be reimbursed at the expense of taxpayers at large.

'Snouts in the Trough' saved harmless?

Will these manouvres make Conroy's Gap a closed circuit?

Internet filtering for all?