Telstra's outspoken group managing director of public policy and communications, Phil Burgess, also put Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on notice, saying the telco will not hesitate to start more public stoushes with the government if it feels the need.
During an expansive public lecture in Canberra, Dr Burgess, one of the so-called "three amigos" of Telstra's American management team, bemoaned how government dominates debate in Australia.
Dr Burgess said Australia's civic order - businesses, the media, religious organisations, think tanks, service clubs, peak industry organisations - are tepid, timid and beholden to government.
Instead of trying to spark and influence public debate, Australia's civic institutions try only to influence Canberra, usually behind closed doors.
"If we do a health check on Australian democracy, the economic organs are doing really well. The political organs are dominated by government and the civic organs are in atrophy," Dr Burgess told AAP after the lecture.
"To have a healthy democracy, especially when you're going through rapid change like we are ... we need to have everybody involved."
He also complained about the "enormous power" of government ministers in Australia, saying it limits the "give and take" that make for good policy-making.
Dr Burgess, who has lived in Australia now for almost three years, said civic institutions were also suffering because they struggled to find independent, non-government funding.
"I would say the biggest problem is taxes are so high here the government gets all the money," he said.
Dr Burgess said the lack of public debate helped nurture a 'She'll be right' attitude which, he said, was one element of the Australia's ethos he rejected.
"You can do the 'She'll be right' all you want, but there's a problem," he said.
"There's a problem when complacency is so high that people say 'Hey, what's wrong? Everything's fine, why worry about it?'"
Dr Burgess said his company's slanging matches with the Howard government had not been personal, and that he believed in "a good stoush".
"When government is doing things that are against the interests of our shareholders and against the interests of consumers and, in our view, against the public interest ... then we have a responsibility to stand up and educate the public that there's another point of view," he said.
"If we have a fundamental disagreement - we've already had a lot of disagreements with the Rudd government, all kinds of things - we're never going to violate our principles, we're never going to give away shareholder money without a fight."
In written notes to accompany his lecture, Dr Burgess also took aim at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, saying its performance in telecommunications has been a "dismal failure".
ninemsn 30 Apr 2008
A monopoly has always stifled growth, a fact that Telstra is all too aware of. The U.K model for the telecommunications industry would benefit Australia significantly.
No comments:
Post a Comment