Nats may get their $2b for rural comms

Stuart Corner
Saturday, 10 September 2005 15:22

IT Policy - Regulation

According to the Australian Financial Review, senior federal government ministers are willing to deliver the Nationals a $2 billion regional telecommunications fund and impose tough conditions on Telstra's operations to secure support for legislation on the $32 billion Telstra privatisation. However the report said that prime minister, John Howard, and senior ministers were unlikely to countenance an amount much larger than $2 billion and were "working on proposals to ensure future governments can only spend the fund's investment earnings expected to be about $100 million a year and not its capital."