There's no way a privatised Telstra will maintain services to remote areas

If Telstra is sold there will be few people outside Australia's big cities who will receive a reliable and acceptable telecommunications service. In fact there are many people in Australia's cities themselves who believe a privatised Telstra will see the little people - the ordinary people - bereft of such a service. A user-pays charge on callout and maintenance will see the service in the long term priced out of the reach of the less advantaged sector of our society. If the service breaks down it will not be fixed until they find an awful lot of money and, as in the United States, the poor ultimately will not have a telephone.

It has been argued that all other countries have a privatised telco. In fact, on the information provided to members of Parliament, out of the 29 OECD countries only 11 at most - but more likely nine - have privatised telcos.

But even if every nation on earth had a privatised telco it would still be a wonderful day for Australia if our politicians could shrug off their embarrassingly colonial mentality long enough to make policy which actually fits our own unique circumstances.

On the specific subject of telcos it would be nice if our leaders reflected upon the fact that Australia in all likelihood is the only nation on earth where 90 per cent of its area is 100 kilometres away from a town of over 100,000 people; and where a significant number of people actually live in that 90 per cent. It may well be that a nation with a privatised telco is a suitable model for most of the world, but there is no doubt that in the case of Australia, while such a model might adequately service the 90 per cent of the population who live on 10 per cent of its area, only a fool would believe that it will deliver to the 10 per cent who live and work on the remote 90 per cent.

The full privatisation of Telstra issue represents a clear-cut divide between city and country and presents a problem for the National Party in Queensland and New South Wales. In regional Australia it is a burning issue. People here have seen service after service depleted, diminished or abolished. Under corporatisation or privatisation they have seen employees simply vanish. Regional Australia is well aware of the further implications of corporatisation or privatisation and no amount of bulldust from the politicians will alter their view.

The image that Mr Anderson projects with his of-course-Telstra-must-ultimately-be-sold stance is strongly reinforced by the National Party's involvement in the dairy and pending sugar deregulation. Dairy deregulation arguably lost them five of their six state dairy seats. Keating lost all six sugar seats when he proposed deregulation of the sugar industry. It is clear that Australia's major political parties, like the Bourbons, have forgotten nothing and learned nothing.

It really isn't very surprising that under Mr. Anderson's leadership the party has lost one quarter of its elected representatives (three House of Representatives seats in the last election); and it is an even clearer indication of the death wish of the party that he has been left in the saddle. Does anyone think for one moment that if a leader of the Liberal Party or the Labor Party had gone through an election and lost one quarter of its members that that leader would remain as leader?

Mr Anderson's role as self-appointed salesman for a free-market economy asserts that our rural constituents, in a world where rural community support mechanisms are actually increasing despite the rhetoric, do not need support. His philosophical stance appears almost Lamarckian eg. that the rural sector might be genetically weakened by support.

Following the Russian revolution, Trofim Lysenko's infamous Lamarckian policies were to result in tragedy for millions of Russian peasants. If we allow Telstra to be fully privatised and a sector of the Australian community is ultimately denied an essential emergency service, will we be any better than Lysenko?

If Telstra is sold and there are no watertight support mechanisms to ensure everyday Australians are receiving the quality telecommunications services - essential emergency services - they need, it may have far-reaching implications.