Telstra Madness

Would it be a good idea to sell all the national highways to a trucking company? Most people would see the conflict of interest; the controlling trucking company could make things very difficult for other trucking companies wanting to use its roads. It would be easy to charge an amount that would make the opposition uncompetitive. A government body would need to regulate the highway owner to ensure that the competition got a fair go. There'd be constant arguments about what constitutes a fair price for highway use. A ridiculous situation.

The sale of Telstra in its entirety is just such a ridiculous situation. The government proposes to give control of the service component (the trucks) and the hardware component (the roads) of the information infrastructure to the same company.

Since the deregulation and part privatisation of Telstra, there's been constant battles as competitors which use Telstra infrastructure accuse them of charging prices which make their services uncompetitive. It's been difficult for the regulator to sort out the real cost of running the network to force Telstra to set reasonable prices. This is while the company is still 51% government owned. Imagine what it will be like when it's 100% in private hands.

The National Party is correct in being worried that Telstra's interest in serving the regions will wane after it gains total control. There's no profit in servicing remote areas.

The sty doesn't have a problem with the idea of Telstra being privatised as long as the resulting company competes on a level playing field. Telstra should be split up with the infrastructure either (preferably) being held in government ownership or sold to a company that doesn't have an interest in telephony services.

Privatising Telstra while it provides communications services and controls the means of distribution is going to result in an organisation that can stymie competition and have little incentive to develop new communications innovations.