Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

The prospectus has been signed, and very clearly the government supports the nomination of Mr Cousins, which has been accepted. The Labor Party has a real hide to criticise the government’s handling of the privatisation of Telstra. Labor, as usual, speaks out of both sides of its mouth: it opposes the sale on the one hand but refuses to buy back shares from the Future Fund. If it believed in public ownership you would think that the Labor Party would try to get its line straight about where it is going with Telstra.

Labor will not remove the remaining shareholding in the Future Fund. They say that Labor is ‘at pains’ because it will not say what it will do about Telstra. Unlike the Labor Party, this government has a coherent plan for the privatisation of Telstra and for the telecommunications industry, which is today marked by the T3 launch.