Anderson gives no guarantee on Telstra services

The following was reported by ABC online on Wed 27 April 2005.

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.

The party is considering its position on the sale of the telecommunications company and is expected to focus on ways to ensure services are maintained in rural areas, regardless of how much of Telstra remains in public hands.

Mr Anderson says while every effort will be made to ensure equality, it is impossible to guarantee services will not eventually fall behind in country areas.

"Can we bind another government 10 or 15 years down the road? Not completely," Mr Anderson said.

"But we can certainly make it very, very much tougher for them to walk away from rural Australia and that's my intention."

Comment: John Anderson has conceded what we, and every informed comentatator, have long been arguing, that is it is not possible to "future proof" a fully privatised Telstra to ensure that rural customers don't miss out on technological advances that become available to customers in the cities. Given this admission, how he expects his rural constituency to be satisfied with is promise to "make it very, very much tougher for them to walk away from rural Australia" is a mystery to us.

If he wished to "future proof" Telstra, why can't he simply do as his own constitutency overwhelmingly demands, that is, to vote down privatisation legislation and use the majority government control to ensure that new technologies are made available in rural areas? - JS, 27 Apr 05