Source: The Age - Misha Schubert
27th May, 2005

Millions of Australians will face new conditions of employment as the Prime Minister realises his vision for radical industrial relations reform. A dramatic rewrite of Australia's workplace laws will strip the basic safety net for millions of workers to a handful of conditions and remove the right of appeal for people who claim to have been sacked unfairly.

Source: The Age - Garry Barker
25th May, 2005

The telco has stunning growth in new mobile users and is chasing its competitors' customers. Vodafone Australia has had "a massive year", estimating that in the March quarter of 2005 it collared 45 per cent of the growth in Australia's mobile market. "We have really turned up the heat on the competition," said its outgoing chief executive, Grahame Maher.

Source: The Age - Garry Barker
25th May, 2005

David Murray won't, John Stanhope hopes to, David Moffatt probably cannot, and the real replacement for Ziggy Switkowski at the helm of Telstra has yet to stand up. Most likely, the new man will be an American, probably a senior executive lured away, possibly from AT&T, by a salary big enough to startle the local punters.

Source: The Age - Jason Koutsoukis
25th May, 2005

Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie overruled his chief executive, Ziggy Switkowski, and rehired a former Liberal Party staffer, doubling his former salary to $400,000 a year. A Senate committee heard yesterday that 10 months after John Short's job as manager of government relations in Canberra was made redundant, Mr McGauchie ordered that he be hired as a consultant on the full sale of Telstra.

Source: ABC Radio - Peter Ryan
24th May, 2005

Speculation is intensifying that Telstra is about to name a new chief executive to replace Ziggy Switkowski, who finishes on the 30th of June. The spotlight is shining brightly on David Murray, head of the Commonwealth Bank, and its shares rose more than 2.5 per cent today amid talk that a deal with Telstra is about to be finalised. It's been reported that head-hunters have been appointed to seek Mr Murray's replacement at Australia's number two bank, and the Prime Minister is understood to have visited Mr Murray recently.

Source: The Australian - Fergus Maguire and Mathew Charles
24th May, 2005

Telstra's next chief executive will consider how to slash costs, which have risen faster than sales in the past five years, according to the telco's chief number cruncher, John Stanhope. Mr Stanhope - who is considered to be among the top internal contenders to replace outgoing boss Ziggy Switkowski - said Telstra needed to invest in better sales and billing systems to cut costs and boost earnings. "The transformation has to take place as soon as possible," Mr Stanhope said. The 54-year-old has made no secret of his desire to replace his boss at Telstra's helm.

Source: The Age - Stephen Bartholomeusz
24th May, 2005

Late last week Federal Treasury took the first step towards putting flesh on the bones of Peter Costello's Future Fund, announced in the budget, by opening a tender for the asset consultancy which will help develop the fund's investment mandate. The tender, which opened last Thursday and will close on June 14, provides some indication of the speed with which the Government is moving. The successful applicant will deliver their advice within two months of being appointed. The urgency may have something to do with the prospect that the structure of the fund could have implications for the size and shape of T3, the final sell-down of the Government's stake in Telstra.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald - Elizabeth Knight
20th May, 2005

Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie should be a happy man having read the address given by Finance Minister Nick Minchin yesterday. In just about every respect Minchin was giving a green light to the final selldown of the Government's stake in Telstra - and on terms that sound highly favourable to the Telstra board. In the first instance Minchin has formally recognised the new chief executive of Telstra must have telecom experience and that his or her nationality does not count. Clearly, Minchin is aware a decision has already been made on this appointment. And he knows it is a US national.

Source: The Australian - Michael Sainsbury
18th May, 2005

Telstra is putting the final touches to an internal process restructuring aimed at ripping at least $150 million in costs out of the business. The company is using its much vaunted "Six Sigma" quality management system to insert eight key process managers who will operate across Telstra's nine different operational divisions, such as consumer, business and technology. "Over the last three years Telstra has implemented significant improvements in our processes which have contributed to reduced cycle times, increased revenues and, importantly, improved the customer experience with Telstra," chief executive Ziggy Switkowski said in a note to senior management.

Source: The Australian - Michael Sainsbury
16th May, 2005

The call of former Optus chief executive Chris Anderson used to be "we are not Telstra in short pants". But on the strength of the company's fairly underwhelming full-year financial results two weeks ago, that is exactly what Optus has become. Seven years of tremendous revenue growth for Optus, much of it at rates of more than 15 per cent each year, has ground back to being line ball with its bigger competitor.

Source: ABC Online
12th May, 2005

A difference of opinion has emerged in the Coalition over whether the proceeds of the full sale of Telstra would be "locked away" in the Federal Government's Future Fund. The scheme has been set up to meet the Government's unfunded superannuation liabilities. Last night's Budget has provided further details of the how the fund will operate.

Source: The Australian - Mandi Zonneveldt and Mathew Charles
12th May, 2005

Telstra is set to axe hundreds of jobs within weeks as it begins cost-cutting in readiness for T3 as it share prices wallows below $5. It is believed hundreds of jobs will be cut from the business and government division before the end of the month, many of them in Melbourne. The job losses at Telstra add to a mounting unemployment toll, with National Australia Bank yesterday announcing plans to shed a total 4200 jobs.

Source: The Australian - Michael Sainsbury
10th May, 2005

Telstra will be forced to publish the prices it charges its own retail divisions to use the Telstra network, as part of new rules being discussed with the federal Government aimed at improving transparency at the company ahead of its planned $30 billion privatisation. Known as "transfer pricing", this would require Telstra's wholesale division, which owns and runs the various telecommunications networks, to have a formal relationship with its retail arms for the first time.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald - Colin Kruger
6th May, 2005

Optus delivered a record $648 million profit for the year to March 31, up 39 per cent on the prior year. But the announcement was soured by slowing revenue growth in the fourth quarter and forecasts that profit margins could fall this year as increasing competition and infrastructure investment take their toll.

Source: The Land
6th May, 2005

It?s an absolute joke! At the moment, people in Sydney are paying $30 for broadband internet. People in rural areas are paying $70 or more per month.

Source: The Australian - Michael Sainsbury
5th May, 2005

The Telstra board is poised to sign off on a replacement for chief executive Ziggy Switkowski, who is due to leave the company in eight weeks. But an announcement may not be made until the end of this month. It is understood that the board has settled on a North American candidate, with AT&T chief operating officer Bill Hannigan now in close consideration for the job.

Source: The Age - Garry Barker
5th May, 2005

Telstra's A+ credit rating outlook has been downgraded from stable to negative by Standard & Poor's, the world's leading corporate credit rating agency. The agency's report said the revision "reflected the downward pressure on the rating" caused by rising expectation that the Government intended to go ahead with plans to sell off its remaining 52 per cent holding in Telstra. But the report's principal author, Colin Atkin, said the overall outlook for telecommunications, globally and domestically, was that "in the next 12 months to three years Telstra's rating is likely tobe lower; still in the A category, but possibly, though less likely, in the high BBBs."

Source: The Age - Paul Robinson
5th May, 2005

An international authority on Chopin and one of Australia's most acclaimed classical pianists has developed a program that he says reduces repetitive strain injury in the workplace. Melbourne-born virtuoso pianist Alan Kogosowski, who began his music career at six, has followed his system of posture, dubbed "hand yoga", for more than 45 years without a scintilla of strain. Returning home after 30 years in Europe and America, Kogosowski has also designed a computer keyboard and mouse that encourage hands and fingers to droop in a natural curved pose over the workstation instead of stretched flat in a tension-producing deportment.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald - Malcolm Maiden
2nd May, 2005

Optus and its parent, Singapore Telecommunications, will report results for the year to March on Wednesday that will remind Telstra of the opportunity it missed in Asia. SingTel's Australian arm is now basically a smaller version of Telstra, and its results will reveal that it is under similar pressure to the market leader. Optus's fixed-line telephone business is much smaller than Telstra's but like Telstra it is losing business to wireless networks, and seeing connections cancelled as customers switch from dial-up internet to broadband.