where's the accc...competitive neutrality., page-4

Croesus1

I learned a long time ago not to jump to conclusions. Unfortunately you have yet to learn this lesson.

I am retired. I ran a small business for 30 years and employed staff for 25 of those years. So you are wrong about my "small business that stands to benefit" etc. etc. and you are wrong about a whole lot of other things, I suspect.

BTW, I noticed from another post that you seem to hold talkback radio in high regard. I worked in Radio before you were born. It is all an act. They get the punters all worked up to get ratings.

Talkback radio is just a drivel machine. It attracts the lowest common denominator in regard to both on-air talent (I use that term rather loosely) and the idiots who phone in.

The only hostility I have noticed in regard to Telstra is from Telstra. The government has every right to stand up for the interests of the Australian people.

Unfortunately that leaves TLS shareholders in a very uncomfortable position. You have a right to be very very angry, but don't take it out on the government. They are not the ones who ripped you off with T2 at $7.40. That was Howard's mob, remember? So why take it out on Rudd's mob? And why would you vote for Abbott? He wanted to hand out $10,000 to working mothers just to win votes! Fortunately his cabinet put him back in his box on that one...

In 2001 I had to go to my local member to get Telstra to fix what they broke. By coincidence my local member was then Tony Abbott. While he did nothing useful to help and just sprayed a lot of B.S. around with his meaningless double talk, his staff chief, a formidable lady called Helen, took on Telstra and made them fix the problem. I reckon Helen should be the Member and Tony should be the messenger. But I don't think he could even make a success of that.

About a week later I ran into the exec from Telstra who was involved in the fiasco, at a trade show and took the opportunity to thank him for fixing the problem, even though it was their fault in the first place. In a snarling manner he told me that I would never ever get anything fixed again.

That is the attitude that I am on about. That is why Telstra is hated by its customers. It is residual public service arrogance in the organisation that is at the heart of the problem. You can't expect to have commercial success under those circumstances. Anything the government does is peripheral to the problem.

Anyhow, the best outcome for all, including the long suffering TLS share holders, would be to remove the wholesale section of TLS along with its infrastructure both in the ground and the mobile towers, pay the shareholders compensation for that and then just leave them as a retailer to compete on a level playing field.

BTW, get yourself educated on the facts of the mining industry. It was the industry who asked for the change in the tax. Ken Henry and his team looked at the matter and came up with a solution. It is apolitical. (Non political if you are unsure of the meaning of the word.) A Liberal government would have been given the same advice and would have accepted it. The petroleum industry has had the same system for 20 years.

It seems that you and a number of other TLS holders are so angry, as you well have a right to be, that you just want someone to blame and the government is the easiest target. But in the end you are just tilting at windmills. Why not use your intellect and put your energy into sticking it up the TLS board. They are being paid millions to stuff up your company and screw the Australian people at the same time.