Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the statements by the government’s backbench communications committee chairman regarding the proposed further sale of Telstra shares: ‘I think sweeteners are fair enough provided you don’t suck people in.’ I also refer to comments by business commentator Terry McCrann that:

... the government is quite deliberately setting out to artificially entice you to invest. It is doing so by giving you an unsustainable supercharged dividend income.

I also refer to statements—by Citibank, Moody’s, and Standard and Poor’s—that Telstra’s dividend level is unsustainable. Isn’t the government’s ‘buy now, pay later but get the full dividend anyway’ share offer calculated to mislead small investors and expose them to longer term losses exactly like those suffered by hundreds of thousands of T2 investors?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer is no.