For years the government have been promising to country voters that Telstra would not be sold until services in rural areas had neen brought up to scratch.
Yesterday the Telstra broadband network all along the Eastern seaboard crashed.
Today Howard announced the sale of Telstra.
"Telstra broadband back online Sydney August 16, 2005 - 4:32PM
Telstra engineers have restored Bigpond broadband internet services on Australia's east coast, the company said in a statement today."
If there isn't sufficient redundancy in the major trunks and metropolitan nodes of the network to provide a relaible service, you can imagine what service is like in the Bush, and see how much the tory promise is worth.
"Problems with the telco's ADSL and cable services began at 1.15pm (AEST), Telstra said.
The company said engineers had to reboot equipment in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in order to get the system restored as soon as possible."
Must be running Microsoft network operating systems.
Nats outbid tories on Telstra sellout 3471On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 13:02:40 +1000, "Crouching Nun, Hidden Cucumber" I've read a few economics text books. I've forgotten what they said. What I haven't forgotten was a real estate agent...
Lets hope the voters memory management is not as pee poor.
"A Bigpond spokesman later said all ADSL and cable services had been restored and customers should not experience troubles when logging in or surfing the internet." - AAP
Golly, that's encouraging.
The real reason for the sale is simple:
The fierce bidding war for electoral slush funds between the Libs and the Nats;
"We want 2 Billion for our consbreastuency"
"See your 2 and raise you a billion"
"I will cross the floor if I don't get anotehr 2 billion"
Suprisingly, one of them won, and they have convinced themselves to go ahead with the sale! B^D
This would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
The housing bubble has cooled, and with the downturn, consumer spending has stalled, and so the economy has slowed. By next election the Kensyians in the tory party have to have some source of Pump Priming to keep the poor sick economy rolling along on the last dribbles of consumption.. and that means something sizeable has to be flogged off.
$30 billion will do nicely.
In case you hadn't noticed, this is like selling the family silver to fund dinner.
