The recent announcement of technical staff redundancies in Telstra highlights a lack of service control created by the Coalition Government?s sale of Telstra according to Independent candidate for Calare Gavin Priestley. ...

Spokesperson for Citizens Against Selling Telstra, James Sinnamon, today called upon the Australian public not to buy shares in a company which they already rightfully own....

Professor John Quiggin, an outspoken critic of privatisation and Public Private Partnerships, has called for the renationalisation of Telstra in an article on his popular blog site ...

... The union and others in the community will continue to mobilise against the sale and expose the pathetic nature of the National's grubby deal with their masters in the coalition government...

Age journalist and magazine co-editor Kenneth Davidson writes :Selling Telstra opens way for new monopoly...

"... Every opposition, independent or minor party senator in the current Senate has pledged to oppose the full privatisation of Telstra. Together with them you can block the sale if you choose to do so..."

The Tamworth Northern Daily Leader reports : Overwhelming voter disapproval is reason enough for the Government to abandon plans for the full sale of Telstra, according to Member for New England Tony Windsor...

The government must give an immediate assurance that public funds won't be used for the National Party's planned Telstra sale advertising blitz, according to Independent Member for Calare Peter Andren...

In an article, reprinted from magazine, Kevin Morgan investigates the background of Australia's new communications industry CEO...

Australian Democrats leader Senator Lyn Allison today called on the Government to take the full privatisation of Telstra to a referendum. "The bickering and pork barrelling within and between the Nationals and the Liberals over the sale of Telstra has taken the focus away from the key point - that the majority of Australians do not support the full sale of Telstra," Senator Allison said...

The Coalition is prepared to sell out the bush for $1 billion and $100m a year to engineer a Telstra sell-off despite opposition to the sale strengthening across the country, according to Peter Andren, Member for Calare...

The Nationals' $2B price tag to support the sale of Telstra is a meaningless estimate with no account for the real cost of providing parity of price and service for country Australians, according to Peter Andren, Member for Calare...

With dissension in the Nationals' ranks over the Telstra sale likely to increase, now is the time to have your say on Telstra's future and services in the bush in a new survey being delivered this week from Peter Andren, Member for Calare...

ABC online reports : Acting Prime Minister and National Party leader John Anderson says the Federal Government will not be able to completely "future proof" Telstra over the next 10 or 15 years to ensure services are maintained in regional areas...

A Victorian Government economist has scathingly attacked the record the neo-liberal economists who have exerted a dominating influence over policy decisions at all levels of government in Australia for the past 20 years....

In an interview by Anne Delaney on the ABC's local Riverina radio station's Local Riverina News program, CAST convenor, James Sinnamon urged rural coalition MP's to vote against the government's privatisation legislation ...

The privatisation of the Dalrymple Bay coal loading facilities, by the Queensland Labor Government, found an unlikely critic in in none other than the Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, himself ...

Speaking on Melbourne's Radio 3AW on Friday 26 November, Prime Minister John Howard told his listeners that Telstra customers were doomed to suffer problems with their phone and Internet services no matter who owned the company ...

Australian Democrats Candidate in the Western Australian state elections for the seat of Fremantle, Ms. Delys Beaumont, has described the North Lake broadband debacle as further evidence that the full privatisation of Telstra should not be considered at this time ...

What is the point of having an elected Parliament if they ignore the wishes of 79% of their electorate?. ...

Also published on candobetter.net.

After Telstra discontinued an SMS messaging service without telling anyone, emergency workers were not warned of a leak of sewage into Lake Burleigh Griffin. ...

On 9 November, the final day on which shares in the T3 float offer Telstra customers were notified of increases in the charges for STD calls....

Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo gets a $2.6m performance bonus while much regional infrastructure is in a parlous state, with lines running along fences and through creeks, and the techs who do the job having to battle for fair pay, according to Peter Andren, Member for Calare....

Telstra and the government are engaging in a good cop-bad cop routine to try and save the Coalition from a country backlash over the privatisation of Telstra, according to Peter Andren, Member for Calare...

The Tenterfield Star reports : Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor has called for a full independent inquiry into Telstra and then a referendum on the full sale to coincide with the next Federal election in 2007...
NFF dudded after 1 day!!, 14 Sep

The Telstra sale legislation was pushed through the House without full and proper debate today, making it a sad day for Australian democracy, and the Nationals, apart from Kay Hull, may take the money now, but they will pay for their betrayal, according to Peter Andren, Member for Calare...

The Howard government plans to gag debate on legislation for the sale of Telstra in the Senate next week, Greens Senator Bob Brown said today...

The Federal Government has not made out any case to support its aim to sell Telstra. It has no case and that is reflected in the opinion polls...

The sell-out of their constituents in the bush has disqualified the Nationals from any claim to represent rural and regional Australia, according to Independent Member for Calare Peter Andren...

Age journalist and magazine co-editor Kenneth Davidson writes : Rural Australia is not being well served by the Nationals over Telstra.
Voters in the bush are being set up for their second betrayal by the Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader, Mark Vaile...

Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor has rejected a suggestion by the new Telstra Chief Executive Officer, Solomon Trujillo for Telstra and local councils to form partnerships to upgrade services in so called "unprofitable areas" in country Australia...

The latest victims of the drive to make Telstra an attractive prospect for overseas investors are to be many of Telstra's 300 mobile dealers...

In an article, reprinted from magazine, Kevin Morgan explains the likely outcome if Telstra were to be fully privatised...

The Parkes Champion-Post reports : The privatisation of Telstra must be stopped or country people will be hit with a worse service and extortionate charges according to an anti-privatisation campaigner...

ABC online news reports that the Provincial Cities Association has reaffirmed its opposition to the full sale of Telstra ...

Rural Australia needs a Telstra monopoly and no more free trade deals, writes Kenneth Davidson.
The National Party can no longer hide behind the opposition parties in the Senate to block legislation instigated by its Liberal coalition partners that harms the interests of its bush constituency ...

A mayor has urged the Australian Local Government Association to lobby Coalition senators to oppose the sale of Telstra ...

When I recently phoned John Tonkin, manager of Telstra Countrywide, in regard to its recent decision to deny the request of Eyre Peninsula residents for mobile phone coverage, it became clear that Telstra's public accountability had not been improved by the deregulation and partial privatisation which had occurred in recent years ...

When asked by the Southern Highland News newspaper, on Wed 6 Oct, Alby Schultz, the current sitting Liberal member for the New South Wales rural seat of Hume said, "I remain opposed to the full sale of Telstra ..."

Carpentaria Shire councillors have lodged a complaint with Telstra over the removal of three public payphones from Karumba and Normanton in the Gulf region. ...

Rural West Australians were forced to wait for twelve months after they discoved that their phone stopped working between around 2pm and 10pm on hot days. They had no access to NextG and the nearest public phone was 80km away in Esperence. ...

The community group Citizens Against Selling Telstra called for a boycott of the $8 billion sale of Telstra shares....

It is gratifying to me that the breakdown in negotiations between the ACCC and Telstra in regards to the terms under which Telstra's competitors the access roll-out of high speed broadband network has at least had the momentarily positive outcome of causing you to raise the prospect of cancelling the full privatisation of Telstra altogether....

" ... The PM's staged fire-sale of a third of the publicly held Telstra shares to remove the government as majority shareholder shows how weak the Nats really are. On Thursday the Nats telecommunications committee chair Paul Neville was in the media warning against selling Telstra shares, and by Friday night the sale is on, supported by the coalition....

On Wed 14 September at the point when debated had been 'guillotined', the vote to fully privatise Telstra was made. Against his earlier election promise of last year and against the hopes of his fellow Queenslanders, the newly elected National Senator Barnaby Joyce voted to support the government's full privatisation legislation...

Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor has criticised the National Farmers Federation for their support of the Telstra sale Bills currently before the Parliament...

The government has been deliberately deceiving Australians for years about the true state of the Telstra network to boost the company's sale price according to Independent Member for Calare Peter Andren...

"CAN someone explain what is going on at Telstra? ... A bunch of foreigners fly in, never even having heard of Australia, let alone the little Aussie telephone company, and suddenly they are throwing their weight around and telling the Government what's what..."

A Telstra Employee and CEPU member writes : "...all we hear is 'be more productive', 'you cannot order that, as it's not budgeted for' or 'our budget has been cut so you can not work overtime to complete your work'..."

Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor has publicly issued an invitation to the Minister for Telecommunications, the Hon Senator Helen Coonan to publicly debate the full sale of Telstra in Inverell at her earliest convenience...

Rural and regional voters would never forgive the Nationals if they backed the final privatisation of Telstra, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said today...

The Eyre Peninsula Tribune reports : Short-term hopes for a mobile phone transmission tower on Caralue Bluff, near Darke Peak, appear to be dashed...

The Treasurer's forecast that the federal government will be close to debt free by June next year contradicts his stated position that Telstra should be sold and the proceeds used to retire government debt, according to Peter Andren, Member for Calare...

The final Telstra sell-off is shaping as another over-hyped fiasco, writes Kenneth Davidson of the Age newspaper...

The Border Mail reports that a public meeting on the proposed privatisation of Telstra will be held in Wodonga next month...

Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor, is again surveying the people of his New England electorate as pressure mounts on the Government's proposed full sale Telstra...

In a recent editorial , The Sydney Morning Herald revealed its true colours on the issue of privatisation ...

The Government was quick to claim, as a result of its election victory on 9 October, a stong mandate to proceed with the full privatisation of Telstra. However during the election campaign, itself, which supposedly gave the Government this 'mandate', the subject of privatisation was barely raised ...

The Greens have warned rural and regional Australia to consider the future of Telstra when they cast their Senate vote this Saturday, warning that pro-privatisation forces could end up with a Senate majority ..."

At a recent New York conference, attended by North America's leading institutional investment firms, Telstra CEO Dr Ziggy Switkowski told his audience just how concerned he was that Australian electors might start to think a little more about Telstra before they cast their ballots this coming Saturday ...