Country and city together can STOP TELSTRA SELL-OFF The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, March 29th 2000. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** The Government's bit-by-bit privatisation of the remaining 51 percent of Telstra is in full swing with the sale of its internet service already completed. The sell-off of its IT operations (also to Optus through its partner IBM) and a deal in the pipeline for the Fairfax media giant to buy the Yellow and White Pages are looming. Telstra is to open up its local call technology to Optus by August. by Marcus Browning In addition, the universal service obligation (USO), introduced with deregulation around 10 years ago but carried mostly by Telstra, will be up for tender. Telstra will continue to bear the main burden of the most costly provision of services to regional Australia, while the private operators will "obligingly" take the USO only where high returns are guaranteed. The USO tender spells the beginning of the end of cross- subsidisation of services to rural and remote areas. (Telstra's cross-subsidisation keeps the price of phone calls in regional Australia down at the level of the major population areas and is part of the Universal Service Obligations.) Prior to deregulation Telstra, as the universal service provider, had no need for a USO because it was integral to its operations to subsidise non-profit making areas. When the Government first began to publicly promote its agenda for full privatisation in 1998 there was a rural uproar. It then fiddled some figures and came up with the claim that cross- subsidisation would cost only $253 million per year. This ridiculous amount was refuted even by the outgoing Telstra chairman, Frank Blount, who said the real cost was $1.8 billion. The figures were then fiddled again, to $425 million, and then again to $580.2 million. Now, "competition" is the Government's latest burnt offering to the rural electorate, but they won't swallow it. They know that the end of cross-subsidisation means that they will pay more for their telecommunication services. On top of this they will be presented with a hodge-podge of systems backed up by a skeletal repair and installation service. Optus will not provide anything like a comprehensive back-up service to remote and rural areas because of the simple fact that its priority is profit and only profit. Telstra's widespread job elimination program has already had a detrimental effect on its ability to service the bush. The main Telstra union, the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, said that the introduction of competitive tendering for USO services was flawed and would involve increased risk for rural users. "Telstra's standards in these areas are not what they should be", said the union's Communications Division President, Colin Cooper. "But at least Telstra has an existing, highly reliable network in place throughout Australia." He said the proposal that Telstra should remain as a "carrier of last resort" in areas where the private operators had the USO was unrealistic. "It is simply a nonsense to expect Telstra, especially since partial privatisation, to maintain unutilised assets in a state of readiness just in case one of the new USO providers gets its business wrong and goes broke. In the end it won't happen." Vested interests It is the nature of the privatisation process which makes it rotten through and through with corruption and collusion from the vested interests who are to profit by it. The bogus inquiry into Telstra's service provision is a prime example. It will be conducted by three individuals, with its chairman, Tim Besley, set to make another killing from his involvement in yet another sell-off of a lucrative government asset. He raked in the dough from the two Telstra share floats as a member of a board advising the Government. The board was set up by the Credit Suisse First Boston investment bank which coordinated the international sale of Telstra shares. He was also chairman of the Commonwealth Bank when it was privatised and is currently chairman of Leighton Holdings, the company at the top of the list to get hold of Telstra's Network, Design and Construction division when it is sold off later this year. The other two are shoe-ins for privatisation: Jane Bennett is a former Howard Government advisor and Ray Braithwaite is an ex- Coalition frontbencher and a formulator of the Productivity Commission's national competition policy. The Government continues to deny that the inquiry will be used as ammunition for privatisation. But Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski, the former head of Optus, is unambiguous about its purpose. "By setting up this inquiry the government is honouring a commitment it made as part of its 1998 election policy", said Switkowski. "The policy states that the inquiry must certify that service levels are adequate prior to any sale of Telstra beyond 49 percent." Speaking to "The Guardian", CPA General Secretary Peter Symon, condemned as a "conspiracy" the various moves by the Howard Government. "It's vital that the Howard Government's gallop to privatisation be stopped. It is to be hoped that the whole of the labour movement, together with all the organisations in the bush, be united and mobilised to spike the wheel of Howard's criminal push. "Everything the Government is doing has the end objective of privatising the whole of Telstra. Government Ministers are prepared to tell any lie to smooth the way to kill off the public ownership of Telstra." Mr Symon said the Government obviously has a priority commitment to various "mates" among the big corporations who will make millions in profits from the sell-off and subsequent operation of Australia's telecommunications network. "These politicians have no commitment at all to the overall interests of the Australian people in the cities or the countryside. Their feigned concern for `the bush' is only a smokescreen to minimise the certain loss of votes when country people suffer an even greater loss of services and jobs." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:ART: Country & City together can STOP TELSTRA SELL-OFF
Communist Party of Australia Fri, 31 Mar 2000 22:51:09 -0800
