Broadband agreement provides Telstra with plenty of time

David Thodey, the chief executive for Telstra and Catherine Livingston, the company chairman stuck with the governments plans regarding the force sale of its assets through recent legislation brought about by the $43 billion National Broadband Network during the recent Telstra annual meeting.

The stance taken by the two at the Telstra annual general meeting is likely to upset any shareholders who were looking for the company to fight the recent legislation bought in by the government to split the network operator up.

Although there was a certain level of disappointment over the latest legislation changes and Livingstone and Thodey felt that when it came to an outcome to the NBN that would be considered mutually agreeable this new legislation was both prejudicial and unnecessary they did, however, agree that the vision the government had of its National Broadband Network was one that they shared.

The general mood of the meeting brought urges for the board to refuse to agree to the government’s new policy ”because the Government needs Telstra more than Telstra needs the NBN,” which seemed to show far more understanding of the realities of politics than the starkly contrasting views of Thodey and Livingstone.

The opinion of one of the shareholders was that ”as socialists eventually run out of other people’s money to spend” the board should simply tough it out. Although Telstra seems to have missed this point, the view is that even though the punitive legislation package from the government will soon be in place the best that it can do is to refrain from entering into any agreements and just wait it out.

Comments form Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister that it should be able to reach a deal before the year is out has been mirrored by Livingston and Thodey advising that they were engaged in constructive talks with the government over its involvement in the NBN.

Source – The Age