The Australian Government still has some control over business competition in telecommunications. Recently, the Howard Government made a huge vote of no confidence in the Australian Telecommunications industry as well as Australians in general buy giving telecommunications contracts to Optus, or Singtel: based in Singapore.

In their rationale to sell Testra, the Howard Government said emphatically that this would benefit Australians, Australian business and Australian employment. This decision fails in all fronts for this country. The winner is Singapore.

So more call centres will move to India and other Asian countries, more decisions will be made by a foreign country.

More jobs will be outsourced off shore, more investment in Singapore: not Australia, and little guarantee of service to people in the bush: those most affected.

Qantas is still under threat to be foreign owned by Singapore Airlines. Even Myer could be sold to Wal Mart--albeit American. So far, Australian business has managed to keep retail mostly Australian owned. Now that the Packer media empire has been whittled away by James Packer's decadence, other's are moving to Asia, surely the Australian Government has to protect some of our national interests?

We have a free trade economy under this Government but if things move too quickly, which they are, what will Australia be left with other than boozy and selfish Australian business men who have no national pride?

your problem, stf, is the word: "our". this country is not yours, it's theirs.

your other problem is, you are smart enough to see there is a problem, not smart enough to see the solution. frequent application of alcohol to the throat will soothe the frustration.

Try as an Australian to by land in Singapore. Try to sell Australian manufactured cars. With Singapore, where once I lived for four years, it is all their way, and, one way.

Saintfletcher, am I to understand that you believe that the "job" should have gone to Telstra instead of an Australian/Singapore service provider?
Are you also indicating that if Telstra would have got the nod that no additional Telstra Call Centers will be added to the extensive number already in existence in India?

I am pleased that the "Opel" group has been chosen to provide the broadband service for Australia. Telstra's record is rather tarnished, especially since the 'Five Amigos' have been in the saddle.

One of the Opel partners - Optus - went from being "majority Australian owned" to "majority Australian Company owned" to eventually being controlled by the Singapore Government.

I read somewhere that the Singapore Government now owns more assets in Australia than the Australian Government does. They (Optus) are even responsible for the telecommunications within Parliament House.

It no longer matters if Telstra gets the nod for a Broadband network because they in turn will eventually be foreign-owned as well.

Last week the Sydney Morning Herald reported that there are other overseas companies (Ireland and Germany for example) who would be keen to put in a bid for a new network but need 6 months to prepare - not the 6 weeks available.

(I have a very poor opinion of Optus.
they used Jackboot techniques on me to pay a bill that was not mine.
I was with Telstra at the time).

So, giving the yanks control of our 50 billion "future Fund" AKA "Pollies Pension Fund" is not a vote of no-confidence in Australia.
These are the once in a lifetime budget surplices and we give them to aUs company thaet has a record of loosing super money (Enron's).
A vote of no confidence

I would be surprised and amazed, if the OPEL group manage to
supply any kind of credible alternative for country people.

But I do understand why they got it. Whilst the American
amigos might well have finally brought some changes to
Telstra that were long overdue, when it comes to people
skills, they remain ignorant Americans, who are then amazed
when their roughshod tactics don't work outside America.

Peopleskills matter, humans are emotional creatures, ignore
them at your peril. Americans commonly don't understand that.
George W is a classic example.

SingTel is both a shareholder and an industry leader with established partnership agreements in :

Bhart (30.5% India #1 in market, with 23% market share,since 2000)
Telkomsel (35% Indonesia #1 in market with 55% market share,since 2001)
GlobeTelecom (44.5% Phillipines #2 in market with 38% market share,since 1993)
AIS (21.4% Thailand #1 in market with 49% market share,since 1999)
PBTL (45% Bangladesh #4 in market with 5% market share,since 2005)

For Australia to prosper in the future, other than digging up metals and oils and uranium, we need be more involved in areas of technology development around Asia. Being involved in these services gives us a chance to replace the low paid labor jobs going to India and elsewhere with technologically savvy jobs and the education of the technologically savvy.

SingTels move to providing the internet services for rural and remote Australia - in partnership with Elders, will IMHO benefit us in the longer term. The technology will at least be similar perhaps interchangeable, to what is being used and developed in each SingTel partnership country.

Yes I am a shareholder in SingTel and in Telstra.

"Being involved in these services gives us a chance to replace the low paid labor jobs going to India and elsewhere with technologically savvy jobs and the education of the technologically savvy".

This statement is ambiguous.

Does this mean that being involved in these services replaces the movement of jobs off-shore to exploit India and other Asian countries, or does this mean that being involved in these services replaces or gives a promotion of the the off-shore exploitation jobs into technologically more savvy jobs, which, we know, will also be under-paid?

How can moving the business off-shore stop the subcontracts of labour going off-shore? It makes more sense that it just encourages higher levels of business moving off-shore for lower paid middle management positions.

Eventually raising living standards India, China etc will raise wages, but will be a while before there wages are the same level as Australias.

Should we lower our labor costs to the lower standards where the jobs are going to, or do we get smarter at creating new industry were our strengths are built o

We should do things, where we have a comparative advantage. Mining
and farming happen to be things we are good at. There are other
various niche industries, which depend as much on the skills of
the entrepreneurs that drive them as anything.

Wages don't have to drop, but employing people has to be flexible.
If its not, like huge redundancy payments etc, enterprising people
won't risk hiring other people, its not worth the risk.

I can't see how paying money to a Singapore based Telco is going
to increase skills in Australia. Skilled people are already in
short supply here.

What will be interesting is how much of the claims made regarding
rural internet, will turn out to have been spin and what will be
delivered in results. We'll wait and see.