Alston accuses Labor of secret Telstra sale agenda - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Alston accuses Labor of secret Telstra sale agenda

By Andrew Colley, 0
December 04, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Alston-accuses-Labor-of-secret-Telstra-sale-agenda/0,130061791,120270429,00.htm

Federal Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Senator Richard Alston, is trying to flush out Labor on its policy towards Telstra, yesterday accusing the opposition of planning to sell the national carrier piece-meal to pay for its election promises.

Spokesperson for Senator Alston, Simon Troeth, said the Labor party has been cagey about its plans for Telstra since it released its discussion paper for reforming Telstra last year and challenged the opposition to put its policies on the table for an open debate.

"We've been quite upfront about the process for any further sale in terms of the consideration of the Estens report and possible legislation going to the Senate. We're just calling on Labor to do the same," said Troeth.

Troeth indicated that the opposition should stop using Telstra to distinguish the political outlook of the two parties.

"Simon Crean points to [the possible full sale of Telstra] as key difference between us and the Labor party. That would be fine if they were completely up front about their plan with it," he said.

In the Senate yesterday Senator Alston, based on information from an anonymous source, accused the Federal Opposition party of harbouring plans - that he claims will be revealed early next year by Labor - to sell-off portions of Telstra to "bank roll" election promises while keeping its copper network as a national utility.

The Shadow Ministry for Communications has said Senator Alston's accusation is publicity stunt with no basis.

"Nothing has changed since we released our discussion paper reforming Telstra which is going through our policy review process and we expect it to be finished around the middle of next year," said a spokesperson for Lindsay Tanner's office.

Senator Alston won't reveal the source of the allegations he made in the Senate but Troeth said the Minister had checked the source and was confident it was reliable.