Reading through the ‘Telstra Forum’ on Telstra’s Now We Are Talking website, it’s very clear that many are expressing their complete dislike of Telstra’s management and current actions.
Telstra recently put up a survey for shareholders to answer questions about Telstra and it’s situation. The survey is located here: https://survey.globalreviews.com/telstra/ and asks questions to the respondent, who
The users are expressing how they dislike the survey’s questions being leading questions and all are written to support Telstra’s biased agenda.
Such questions include:
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-financed Next Gâ„¢ wireless broadband network.
With five possible responses: Strongly agree, Somewhat agree, Don’t know, Somewhat disagree, Strongly disagree.
The question is worded in a manner to make the ignorant, those who have no idea really what they are talking about to read “taxpayers money” and “SingTel”, in order to provoke a response from the respondant in support of Telstra’s agenda.
Telstra ran opinion polls on the Now We Are Talking website months ago, and unfortunately for them, the polls didn’t work in their favour, and they haven’t been running polls since they were exposed during a result that reflected Telstra at that point in time had a strong dislike of the actions it was taking.
The type of people Telstra have for shareholders don’t seem to know a lot about the subject they are talking about, the proof is in the pudding, let’s have a read of a comment that I saw recently on the website:
I think this government SUCKS. It supposedly believes in “free enterprise” and privatisation, and, despite electoral promises to the contrary, sold off a major portion of Telstra ( ie the family silver) shares to the public, in order to improve its bottom line and advance and enhance the myth that it is an economic manager par excellence, but then shackled the company as a business and prevented it from competing as a free enterprise business in the marketplace. They are monumental hypocrites, IMHO. And as for Helen Coonan, her credibility is zilch, as far as I am concerned. Her performance on the ABC Radio National’s “The National Interest” two weekends ago was disgraceful. It is blatantly obvious that she and the government have lied through their teeth about the research that allegedly shows that over half of young people who go online in chatrooms etc are contacted by strangers. The details of this research are yet to be revealed, despite requests to release it for public scrutiny, and follow-up queries from “The National Interest” have been ignored. She said on the programme that she “would consider releasing the research data”, but obviously has no intention of doing so, as it would show up her claims for what they are – lies, damned lies and (cooked) statistics. The government has spent (ie. wasted) many millions of taxpayers’ dollars on the “NetAlert” campaign, money that would have been put to much better use on education, health, or broadbanding the country and bringing it into the modern world of the 21st century. A collective pox on their house!!
Now, reading that, the author of that comment wrote exactly: I think this government sucks. Ok, that’s an opinion.
“It supposedly believes in “free enterprise” and privatisation, and, despite electoral promises to the contrary”
Free Enterprise, it sure does, and privatisation isn’t something it announced it believed in. It simply saw privatisation as a solution to a conflict of interest it had.
Electoral promises to the contrary? What Electoral promises? The sale of Telstra was always on the books, and in doing that, they now have no conflict of interest and can perform the jobs they are performing well at, by being the regulator, and not the conflicted owner as well.
“sold off a major portion of Telstra ( ie the family silver) shares to the public, in order to improve its bottom line and advance and enhance the myth that it is an economic manager par excellence, but then shackled the company as a business and prevented it from competing as a free enterprise business”
Sold Off? Telstra was 49% sold off before T3. What was the prediction? They’d just hold 51% endlessly, and regulate itself ?
The Government’s job is to regulate, not to own a telecommunications company. The family silver is not Telstra. If you bought Telstra Shares with the family silver, and don’t like the fact they are now privatised, and not performing well for you, that’s not the government’s fault, that’s TELSTRA’s fault. Telstra’s job is to perform. The regulatory goal posts haven’t moved at all. They’ve been the same all along.
Telstra doesn’t like the regulations they were privatised with. That’s not the government’s problem. The regulations were there when shares were sold. If you didn’t investigate, that’s YOUR problem.
Telstra was not shackled after the sale of T3. They still have the same regulations that applied, and nothing has changed to stop them ripping off consumers and wholesale customers. They still do!
“They are monumental hypocrites, IMHO.”
A monumental hypocrite would own Telstra, regulate prices for the consumer and at the same time pester the Telstra board for better returns. That’s the situation they were in, they are no longer in that position. In fact, any idiot could have predicted the government was selling Telstra not for financial gain, but to remove the conflict of interest it had.
They did that. What do you think would happen after the conflict of interest was removed, and the government was the regulator and not the majority shareholder? Well.. Let me guess… They would.. REGULATE.
I suppose there are some silly, silly people in this world. Not sure who ranks #1, but people buying shares with news that the government is selling to remove a conflict of interest with regulation? Hmm.. They sort of come in at the top #10.
“And as for Helen Coonan, her credibility is zilch, as far as I am concerned.”
Really? She has more credibility than Conroy, who believed Metro users deserved a maximum of 6Mbit in 2005, where many of them were able to receive speeds in excess of 12Mbps, and some 24Mbps! Coonan knew this and attacked him with it when he raised that point during question time, which clearly demonstrates his lack of knowledge of networks in metro areas, or perhaps networks full stop. You want to trust communications to a near idiot?
“The government has spent (ie. wasted) many millions of taxpayers’ dollars on the “NetAlert” campaign, money that would have been put to much better use on education, health, or broadbanding the country and bringing it into the modern world of the 21st century. ”
I won’t make ultimate comment on NetAlert. But what I will say is:
NetAlert (and any other filter) is designed to be a control mechanism, and not complete supervision. There’s no substitute for a parent’s eyes. They are the most forward looking, the most cautious, the most caring (well, most are, some aren’t but that’s not a discussion here) eyes available, and therefore the best form of prevention when it comes to access to inappropriate content, or contact with inappropriate people / machines / morons / criminals.
So, I will say that NetAlert might not be a total waste of money, however, I do state here that NetAlert could perhaps be tested more strongly, and perhaps the NetAlert is a waste of money, who knows, we won’t have statistics on crimes, rapes, incidents that it has prevented, all we will end up having in the end is crime statistics that could show the crimes increase, but that doesn’t state the user had it installed, or maintained correctly.
The same applies for ISP level filtering, which might be a big waste of money, but on the other hand, if it prevents crime, then its been a good spend of money.
I suppose you can’t blame fools for buying Telstra shares, they do seem to have not done any research and bought for the sake of buying something. These same sorts of buyers buy Bigpond because its free installation. But idiots, it costs you $1000 to $2000 or more over the longterm than it would to simply pay the $100 install fee with other non to low contracting ISPs.
Bad money management, it’s there in shareholders too ?
Enjoy!
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