Gazza threatens Public Service Pensions if they don't play ball on Telstra Sale?

youre mischievious misquoting adds to your dark interpretation.

I quoted the first paragraph of his media release in full.

If Gazza is saying that after a decade the Liberals have so mismanaged the finances that they have to sell off public assets to meet their commitments then he should have the decency to de-link that from the Telstra debate.

Personally I don’t see why the Government should part-own a tekco, but that’s another issue to the one Senator Humphries is going at.

i note that while the emotional handwringers still bleat about ownership, none of them want to go back to the good old days of monopoly telcos.

i think that proves that im right on this issue.

I read that unfunded super was currently at $90 Billion and increasing at more than a billion a year

From what I have heard from an insider, the superannuation liability is actually a whole lot higher than the watered down projections that the government have been using, they don’t want to scare the populace too much, and are breaking the news to us slowly.

Depends on what discount rate you use.

I also heard that they were currently in the higher level process of thinking of introducing a new tax to fund it, it’s that dire.

Your source is very wrong.

bulldog, I think all australians should be giving themselves an uppercut, not just the rednecks, and especially the Labour party.

The fact that we are in a preference voting system, and the fact that when you vote, even if you tick 1 for labour, 2 for liberal and 3 for national, you’ve still voted twice for the one party.

There is a simple solution, Labour needs to recognise it’s factions, and split into unionists and the rest. Then when you vote, hopefully you’d be able to vote 1. Labour1 2. Labour2 3. Liberal 4. National

That’d even up the stakes into a level playing field I can tell you.

From what I have heard from an insider, the superannuation liability is actually a whole lot higher than the watered down projections that the government have been using, they don’t want to scare the populace too much, and are breaking the news to us slowly.

I also heard that they were currently in the higher level process of thinking of introducing a new tax to fund it, it’s that dire.

Unfortunately for me, the end result is I’m going to end up funding all this out of my wages in my future life 🙁

That said, when something earns 1.2 billion dollars annually, I really can’t see why you’d want to sell it…

Telstra infrastructure was paid for by Australian taxpayers. Will we receive a check from the Government when it is sold? I think not.

Tesltra is also a reliable cash cow for any government that is in power. In ten years when telstra is no longer bringing in its 1.2 billion dollars annualy, where will the government source the additional required revenue? From the taxpayers.

Lastly, when the Government delivered it’s last budget didn’t we have about a 5 billion dolar budget surplus? Do we need this money that the sale of Telstra will bring in?

This is a shite state of affairs and every idiot who voted Liberal or National at the last election should give themselves an uppercut.

As for Humphrey’s, the implication that the Federal Government needs to sell Telstra in order to pay out APS superannuation is a flat out lie. He should join the ‘majority’ of Australians in punching himself. In the face. Hard.

oh fercrissake

people have emotional attachments to assets. its why they make irrational decisions.

where does it say that the gummint has to provide telecommunications ? it has for the past 90 years, but the world has turned.

look at the mountain of deregulation that has occurred since the 80’s: multiple carriers = cheaper services.

would you rather there were no competition and you still had 2600 bps modems ?

communities in the bush that whine about service are now able to form a corporation and provide their own telco services if they choose.

no, instead we have political blackmail.

im not saying there shouldnt be subsidies, in fact the universal service obligation exists for that purpose. if you look at other models, like in the US, it is even easier for remote areas to access telco services.

I really dont think people have a true understanding of telco technology, often they just have this irrational attachment to a private company that continues to put its hand in your pocket at every opportunity.

embrace change, embrace technology, embrace competition.

Is it just me that is saying how hard is it to divide telstra into two parts, infrastructure and telco.

Govt keeps infrastructure, sells telco. Farmers don’t have anything to whinge about, cause infrastructure is still being rolled out by Government, Government makes money from selling communications side of the house.

How hard would that be ?

Considering that the government hold the butchers knife, not a problem at the moment, but it’ll get increasingly harder to do the more percentage they sell off.

jb i didnt see that as an implicit threat, more a statement of the obvious.

youre mischievious misquoting adds to your dark interpretation.

and no, im not married to humphries wifes staffers sons sister.

i used to watch humphrey b bear though.

Just trying to stay current in the meeja ’till he gets rolled by the next golden child.