Australia - Analysis of the Estens Report

Synopsis

Estens has lobbed the T3 ball squarely into the government’s court. Telstra may be off the hook but Estens has unquestionably pointed the finger at the government. While they subsequently addressed the Report’s thirty-nine Recommendations (23 of which require a government initiative and only 16 a Telstra initiative) the government still refused to come up with both a Strategic Plan and billions of dollars of funding. Up till now the government has refused to take responsibility for the funding of regional telecommunications infrastructure and they have also refused to allocate money from T3 towards such a fund.