its a dud, page-21

benson,

'... the unsuspecting shareholder which includes me as I did'nt c the unprecedented legislative blackmail threats coming ...'

then i suppose you didn't see the fight between howard government (helen coonan) and telstra (trujillo, burgess, and mcgauchie) long before rudd government came in. you wouldn't know the tension that time when telstra board rejected cousins but howard used its voting power to push him in.

i suppose you didn't see how telstra (still under trujillo) was much friendlier toward labor, because of the bad deal howard gave to telstra (telstra had to cancel its broadband plan) during the election that defeat the coalition. you wouldn't know then the cause of the fight between labor government and telstra. it was because trujillo, burgess, and macgauchie were still as combative as toward howard government in trying to keep its monopoly. and no government in australia (labor or liberal) can afford to let a company holds a monopoly on a sector.

you didn't see the warning, but i saw (in tv or paper) conroy warned telstra that if it kept trying to bully the government he would legislate to end the monopoly. that time telstra share price was almost $5.00. the warning was there!

it's your responsibility as an investor to see the warning and act accordingly, isn't it?

the facts that created the conflict between telstra and government (liberal and labor) are:
1/ telstra wanted to keep its monopoly and maximise its profit
2/ the government (such as liberal and labor that follows capitalism) had to make sure that there was a level playing field for all players (optus and other smaller telcos used to complain about telstra all the time!) in the market (which i think is contradictory to capitalism which believes in winners take all)

the fact was trujillo lost. the goverment won (it happened to be labor, but a liberal government would have done the same, judging by howard government's treatment to telstra.)

seen from the above perspective, thodey and his team are telstra's saviour by getting this generous deal, as stated by malcom maiden of the age recently.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/thodeys-great-save-on-nbn-deal-20110623-1ghfd.html

and labor government (or conroy), as i have said, it is really too early to judge whether it is the destroyer of telstra or the catalyst that propels telstra into the blue sky beyond the cloud (computing).

my bias says it is the catalyst! and the destroyer (at least for a short to medium term) is the coalition government if it wins in the next election and makes new rules in the middle of the game.

in the mean time, i think it is time for telstra share price to go up!

good luck to fellow holders!