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...and poor Telstra fanboys.
The company is a joke. Another $10billion wiped off their net worth might force the company to realise that Sol Trujillo and his dodgy amigoes are only lining their pockets with our hard earned.
Bring on the Optus nationwide network!
Yes and let's send all the Australian profits back to Singapore. Or better still let us grant the NBN build to Axia and they can spend their 19 million working capital on the 10 billion network.
Telstra's bid was incomplete, just like everything else they do. In fact the only complete thing about Telstra is the number of Amigos on the company's board.
@Sydney - Since Sol's been in he's been hating Australia vicariously through Telstra, so you can't blame the rest of the country for jumping on the bandwagon. Good old Kev is promoting hatred too by handing out wads of cash by the billions to the biggest morons this country has to offer. Why would he choose Telstra when he can send the money to his Chinese mates? Bottom line is, don't vote Labor, cos they are the ones that stiffed Telstra.
Don't vote labor because they stiffed Telstra? Labor wouldn't have had to stiff Telstra if it hadn't of been sold under Howard... And what do you mean send the money to his Chinese mates? Are you actually referring to any people or organisations in particular or are you just making a connection to him speaking mandarin.... I sincerely hope you're not referring to SINGAPORE and getting it confused with China...
is this attack on the previously untouched axia a signal of telstra PR re-aligning the barrel of their NWAT cannon to point at someone else other than optus? Perhaps they realised that the under-dogs here do represent a threat after all? If axia lodged a bond, a valid proposal and say they can do it to 98% of aust... well there 2 out 3 ahead of telstra, and blah blah blah finance this, evil that... your finacial argument was against optus, use a new 1 would you?
Interesting. Nick Minchin seems to believe that companies should be allowed to have non-compliant proposals to Government considered. In short, he seems to believe that companies are not required to follow the rules in their engagement with Government.
That, then, explains a lot of what we saw under 11 years of Howard.
To argue that the tender documents are "vague" suggests Minchin has a poor understanding of the English language (entirely possible).
But Telstra has no such excuse. They have an army of lawyers who are paid lots of money to ensure that all legal and contractual obligations and requirements are satisfied.
The fact that they missed such a basic mandatory requirement in their "bid" proves that they either never had the intention to properly participate in this process, or they are so incompetent we should all be thankful that they won't be building NBN.
If they can't follow these rules, what other requirements would they have missed or ignored?
And here I was all this time thinking that Minchin was brought in due to his background and that he would try and fight Conroy and keep the process as fair as possible without any bias. How wrong can someone be.
All the other bids lodged met the submission criteria. However the bidder that openly says they started their proposal first, were the first to lodge the bond, were the only ones capable of building the NBN at all, they failed to provide all the required details on time.
Case in point:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=KYkcXrX6Q3U .. Donald McGauchie starting his speech on D-Day saying that Telstra has a proposal but didn't submit it, but thought the letter was good enough.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=2rZksi1TWBg .. Greg Winn saying how they started first and how no one else can do it.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=gRZcYKy2ee4 .. Kate McKenzie in the earlier NBN stages saying how Telstra are the first to lodge the bond and are the first getting the design going.
It's highly doubtful now that Telstra will win the NBN, not without a lot of legal contention from all the other bidders anyway, but the more and more Minchin tries to back them and cover their submission failure the more he drags himself down.
Bottom line is Telstra don't need to be involved in the NBN, from my understanding there are bids lodged that don't require the use of Telstra infrastructure at all, maybe it's time Minchin moved on from his whining and concentrated on what could be positive from the NBN not delving on the bidding process everyone else adhered to.
If you look at this whole NBN fiasco sideways, you can actually see a positive side.
Let's assume that Telstra is out of the running and the government will get someone to build a decent NBN. We will then end up with two networks competing for customers. On one hand we will have the NBN, which will have to go into operation, no matter what the $$$ situation looks like. After all, it's a politically driven network. (Perhaps it will come with an internet filter!). On the other hand, we will have Telstra trying to stick the boot in by "stealing" customers and thus proving that "they win."
At the end of the day, this could result in competition based on pricing, which is not the worst outcome for the consumers.
Let's just hope that things do not get stuck in lawyer-land.
You are right Some Guy, but do not think for one minute that those who bid for the NBN want, or will accept competition.
Let us forget Telstra, they will proceed to upgrade their systems and successfully compete. Let us watch those pretenders who bid for the NBN with no funds in the hope that the Australian taxpayer would stake them.
That is now doubtful as Mr Rudd has just about sent Australia broke with his handouts. Now we will see Axia and company start the cries for regulation to prevent opposition to them and their phantom NBN.
Lets be honest these bidders have no finance and no hope of getting any so the snouts will really be in the Australian taxpayer pocket for big bucks. Senator Conroy scrap the whole NBN and start again and call for a FTTH system.
Sydney, your main argument seems to be that the other companies simply don't have the financial backing. I really disagree with this but seeing as I can't *prove* it any more than saying "yes they can" I just have to wait and hopefully the proof will be in the pudding
Bring back Helen Cooonan
Coonan had 11 years to get some sort of an nbn started and the closest they got was OPEL - 11 YEARS....
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Is Nick Minchin the new Minister for Telstra? He never misses an opportunity to bat for them.