On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:55:36 +1000, GB wrote:

>> Telstra Countrywide manager Jeff Booth says the company is questioning
>> whether its shareholders should pay for everyone to have a telephone.
>
> Damn right they should. They got a country-wide telephone network
> completely free-of-charge, now they get to live up to their end of the
> bargain.

Free of charge? You seem to be forgetting the tens of billions of dollars
the Commonwealth raised by selling Telstra shares.


>> "There is now the question before the Universal Service Obligation of
>> providing the first telephone, there's now a question about where that
>> half billion dollar plus burden a year actually sits" he said.
>
> Square in the lap of the shareholders who are busily enjoying the
> free country-wide telephone network that they got completely free-
> of-charge, that's where it sits.

What a moron. The Government gave away all the Telstra shares did it?

In actual fact, the Commonwealth SOLD its "country-wide telephone network"
for tens of billions of dollars.