John Linton .......you can be certain that whatever is being referred to is anything but.
Firstly, for all the people who objected to my assessment of the late and totally unlamented previous "prime minister" as an egotistical, posturing, moon faced, grinning clown who hadn't got a clue about any aspect of sensible decision making - my assessment was totally in line with that of people whose job is to make such assessments:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/us-condemns-rudd-20101207-18obr.html
I told you so. Not that it should come as any surprise to anyone that Krudd was so badly regarded - time and time again he looked like a total fool when making his many idiotic pronouncements. Despite what some people thought at the time many, many people who came in contact with Krudd formed the same opinion as I did:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/rudds-wikileak-cables-could-have-been-penned-by-scorned-labor-caucus-20101208-18oud.html
Perhaps it's only me that thinks that it's unusual that our country's head of DFAT should be regarded in this way by, at least, our major ally.
Talking about total fools - Stupid Stephen was always a keen competitor for Krudd's title as the holder of the Rex Connor Memorial Trophy as the most clueless person ever to have held a cabinet position in an Australian Government. His current new claim to that position is his trumpeting of "The separation of Telstra is the holy grail of infrastructure reform". If ever a man self proclaims his lack of knowledge and stupidity that silly posturing phrase is surely a contender:
http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/government-tech-policy/43736-telstra-separation-unnecessary-for-competition-ovum-analyst
I don't hold Ovum in any particular regard but they, generally as far as I have seen in the past get their research right in the articles I have read. (I suppose that should be a given considering their raison d'etre but it isn't always the case - particularly with the current and previous Labor 'governments'). However the glaringly obvious point is that the provision of ADSL (and other) services in Australia did see a drop in Telstra's market share from 100% in 2002 to less than 50% in 2009 with all of the top ten providers of those services making acceptable commercial profits - at least from those that were on the public record. The same applied to mobile, telephone charges and, especially, VoIP which Telstra doesn't officially offer but almost certainly uses within its own infrastructure.
While Professor Fred Hilmer made several cogent points about the need to structurally separate Telstra back in the very early 1990's it was only one scenario and it made very then, and remains making now, very little difference to the effectiveness of how communications services are delivered around Australia. Today, approaching two decades after the passing of the Australian Telecommunications Act everything any sensible person could hope for in promoting competition in the telecommunications industry has come to pass. There are two competing mobile networks that have in excess of 50% of the market. There are several broadband networks that, between them, have more than 50% of the ADSL2 market and telephone calls are as cheap as anywhere in the world for anyone who bothers to look at the choices available to them......
.......and the most important aspect of all....Telstra now sells telecommunications services at prices that are lower than all/almost all of its competitors thereby demonstrating that competition in telecommunications is very much alive and well in Australia. In fact it's so alive and well that Telstra, based on it's current pricing, is recovering some of the market share it has lost over the past almost 20 years. If the definition of success of 'de-regulation' is that end users have greater choice and therefore lower prices then the "Holy Grail" of communications market deregulation was achieved in 1982 and all of Stupid Stephen's posturing is 20 years after the fact.
But then.....that's what you get when you give your vote to those fools......a population always get's the government it deserves.....would anyone seriously take an 18 year old's advice on anything that involved something as important as deciding how a country should be run?
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
ABN 350 979 865 46