Telstra today issued a survey to shareholders aimed at gaining endorsement for its campaign to frustrate competition and pursue attacks on the government, ACCC, and anyone else that gets in its path. The supposedly independent survey includes questions such as:

As a Telstra shareholder, do you agree or disagree with Telstra’s position on the following public policy issues?

• Taxpayer funds should NOT be used to subsidise competitors to build networks that duplicate those paid for by Telstra shareholders – e.g. the Government’s recent grant of nearly $1 billion to SingTel Optus/OPEL to overbuild the Next G™ network
• Shareholder funds should NOT be used to subsidise Telstra’s competitors by requiring Telstra to offer services to its competitors at prices that do not refl ect actual costs or allow a commercial return
• When the coverage provided by Telstra’s Next G™ wireless, broadband network is the same or better than the CDMA network, the Government should NOT force Telstra to keep the CDMA network switched on, which will increase costs and slow the nation-wide expansion of the Next G™ network”

A T4 spokesperson said, “Perhaps while Telstra is compiling empirical evidence it can ask this question: “Should Telstra expect to be taken seriously while it argues in favour of the pro-competitive regulation in New Zealand, for services such as mobile roaming and cost-based access pricing, while it argues the opposite in Australia?”

The full questions:

• The Australian Government recently decided to give nearly $1 billion of taxpayer’s money to subsidise the SingTel Optus/OPEL consortium to build a network that largely duplicates the coverage already provided on Telstra’s shareholder-fi nanced Next G™ wireless broadband network.
  Do you agree or disagree with this decision by the Government to subsidise the OPEL consortium?

• Telstra’s network is Australia’s only nation-wide telecommunications network and is thus a part of the nation’s “critical infrastructure”.
  Do you agree or disagree with the proposal now being considered by the ACCC that part of the Telstra network could be acquired and operated by a consortium, the largest member of which is owned by a foreign government?

• As a Telstra shareholder, do you agree or disagree with Telstra’s position on the following public policy issues?
  • We need to broadband the nation at the earliest possible date – i.e. to build a high-speed (25-50 Mbps) broadband fibre network
  • Taxpayer funds should NOT be used to subsidise competitors to build networks that duplicate those paid for by Telstra shareholders – e.g. the Government’s recent grant of nearly $1 billion to SingTel Optus/OPEL to overbuild the Next G™ network
  • Shareholder funds should NOT be used to subsidise Telstra’s competitors by requiring Telstra to offer services to its competitors at prices that do not refl ect actual costs or allow a commercial return
  • When the coverage provided by Telstra’s Next G™ wireless, broadband network is the same or better than the CDMA network, the Government should NOT force Telstra to keep the CDMA network switched on, which will increase costs and slow the nation-wide expansion of the Next G™ network
  • Policies and regulations should NOT force Telstra shareholders to pay more than its fair share to subsidise uneconomic rural services
  • Policies and regulations that apply only to Telstra should be eliminated, permitting Telstra to play by the same rules as all the other telecommunications companies that it competes with

PRIVACY POLICY