by Gil Hanrahan
If you want to purchase a phone or internet service from Telstra, new corporate policies demand you lay your soul bare to one of its 26,000 Filipino or Indian call centre operators.
If you simply request an extension of your internet allocation or a new phone be prepared for a Stasi-styled interrogation by a salesman whose brogue is heavier than a Highland Scotsman full of malt whisky.
There is no prospect of intelligently deciphering the fractured polemic demanding you reveal your date of birth, drivers licence number, occupation, home address, how long you have lived there, any government-given identity such as a gun or high risk machinery licence, how many dependents you might have, your ABN number if you have one or any other form of identification. All of this sensitive data will be handed to some obscure credit reporting agency.
If you don’t answer yes to whatever question is in the offing, you get no service, regardless of what you thought the operator said.
For the life of me, I am sure the fourth seemingly female operator I encountered after 5 days of trying to extend an internet allocation, asked me to show her my ……..you know what!
Then after questioning what she said, I am sure she promised she would show me hers?
It was a distant yet exciting cosmopolitan affair guessing which nationality would answer the call. Would it be a delightful Filipino gal or a nubile, swarthy babe from the depths of New Delhi?
I have never been subjected to such a barrage of unintelligent personal questions which leave a serious hospital examination floundering.
Can you imagine a rogue operator (Telstra insists its 26,000 foreign phone jockeys being paid $2.50 an hour all possess exemplary behaviour) selling this information on the open market to marketing companies or to the identity theft black market.
Telstra CEO Andrew Penn appointed in 2015 should clean up his act and re-employ a reported 26,000 Australian call centre operators which would give a huge economic boost to the ailing economy. The lowly paid overseas operators took the jobs of 26,000 Australians.
Telstra has a total monopoly over rural Australian communications
Australian privacy laws have been thrown out with the bathwater by giving unknown foreign operators access to your sensitive information. Why are these operators so ‘anal’ about you giving your date of birth for identification purposes before they will speak to you? Fortunately this scribe gave them a false date of birth many years ago so the remainder of the private identification details they have on file are rendered irrelevant. How are these aliens able to confirm your driver’s licence number unless they have access to the Department of Main Roads data base?
If you do not comply with every question you will not get any Telstra product. All of this dastardly interrogation occurs on an open phone line which one of our pet investigators can intercept in 20 seconds using a Stingray device, the same as the police use to intercept any mobile phone call without the need of an interception warrant.
This readers is what you get for backing the political party duopoly for the past two decades.
Telstra Corporation is an abomination, a miscreant of deregulating Liberalism, spawned by the devil and borne of greed.
Its predecessors the PMG Department and Telecom braved the hideous privatisation ideology of the Liberal and Labor parties by defending their workforce of many World War 2 and Vietnam veterans, protecting them from the avaricious corporations that were circling the publicly-owned communications wagons in the 80’s and 90’s.
Telstra didn’t stand a chance with PM John Howard and his Jewish handlers lining up the profitable telephone utility for the clutches of his somewhat unsavoury stockbroker colleagues.
To get the grubby deal over the line in parliament palms were greased with gay abandon.
This scribe once worked for the federal government at the time Canberra chair polishers went into overdrive when the Liberals presented their bill to privatise Telstra in 1999.
Two members of parliament, without divulging which House, told me they were discreetly offered an Alladin’s cave of riches to support the privatisation of the only reliable and affordable public communications network in the country.
Remember the PMG, was a public utility created in 1901 which only ever charged users the cost of maintaining the network plus a small margin for future works and administration?
It was a proper government utility until Whitlam got his dirty hands on it in 1975 creating Telecom. In 1993 it was rebranded Telstra.
After the disastrous Whitlam era, incorrigible Labor PM’s Bob Hawke and Paul Keating bankrolled their futures after politics by floating the Australian dollar and clearing the decks to sell off our government-owned phone and power services. 1.
It was called 2. privatisation. Readers know where this infestation has led us. Right into the hands of the financial oligarchy so you can be their honorary slaves forever more.
- Privacy breach affecting 60,300 customers
- The true Labor debt inherited by Howard in 1996 was $56 billion plus $40billion of Malcolm Fraser’s debt carried through the Hawke/Keating period. This $96 billion was inherited by Howard.
To pay off this debt the Howard government sold $72 billion of government assets. Hence, the move to “negative debt” or surplus if you like ($72 billion – $56 billion = $16 billion surplus) was not due to “careful and responsible” budget management. Far from it – it was created by irresponsible selling of public assets, one being Telstra.
- Australian telecommunications services were originally controlled by the Postmaster-General’s Department (PMG),[3] formed in 1901 as a result of Australian Federation. Prior to 1901, telecommunications were administered by each colony. On 1 July 1975, separate commissions were established by statute to replace the PMG. Responsibility for postal services was transferred to the Australian Postal Commission (Australia Post). The Australian Telecommunications Commission (ATC), trading as Telecom Australia, ran domestic telecommunication services.
In 1989, the ATC was reconstituted as the Australian Telecommunications Corporation.
In 1992, the Overseas Telecommunications Commission, a separate government body established in 1946, was merged with the Australian Telecommunications Corporation into the short-lived Australian and Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (AOTC) which continued trading under the established identities of Telecom and OTC. The AOTC was renamed to Telstra Corporation Limited in 1993. The name “Telstra” is derived from the word Telecom Australia (TEL from Telecom and STRA from Australia). The corporation then traded under the “Telstra” brand internationally and “Telecom Australia” domestically until uniform branding of “Telstra” was introduced throughout the entire organisation in 1995.
- On 12 July 2011, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) released the findings of its investigation into a mailing list error that resulted in approximately 60,300 Telstra customers’ personal information being sent to other customers. The Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said “Our investigation has confirmed that while Telstra breached the Privacy Act when the personal information of a number of its customers was disclosed to third parties; this incident was caused by a one-off human error. It was not a result of Telstra failing to have reasonable steps in place to protect the personal information of its customers, as required by the Privacy Act.” – Wikipedia
Hi Susan can you ask your federal member this question by email or letter and please send us the reply. Thankyou, Ed
I want to know what Telstra has done with the one month up front payment Telstra levies on all customers! Since conversion to NBN a final statement was forthcoming from Telstra, no credit, no mention in balance bought forward column, no re imbursement, just disappeared like a gift!
NBN similarly requested a one month up front payment!
This is theft, the Telstra off shore customer service operators know nothing about it, but to say you still have it but Telstra refuse to acknowledge it existence on all paperwork, it’s invisible!.
Lottery win my up front for example was at 110 dollars times how many Telstra customers, what one million? What acrevenuecwindfall for them!
I was listening to ABC Radio
Years ago
And the story went like this
The Australian government BLED Telecom for every cent that it could
Leaving only enough for basic running costs & essential repairs
No money for upgrades Telecom was KEPT PRISTINE
OUR LOSS HERE
It did not matter which political party was in power
The practice of stripping Telecom of every cent that they could was regimented.
Did you know that interstate calls only ever cost the same amount as a local call to put through
But Australians were forced to pay more – based on a lie.
And then they sold it off for two pence half penny to their mates.
The Jewel In Australia’s Crown.
The Goose That Lays The Golden Eggs – still today.
The Australian political Arena cannot be trusted to run a chook raffle lest they steal the proceeds & the boody chook.
Thanks guy’s Your right again about Governor Paul De jersey,
His Excellency Paul De jersey was appointed as the 17th Chief Justice of Queensland on 17 February 1998, and he served by appointing the judges he or the Politicians wanted to hear specific court matters to ensure to pervert & have defeated the course of justice, based on My first-Hand Experiences. De jersey therefore has a conflict of interests being the Governor!
De jersey was in that role for more than 16 years until 8 July 2014. His Excellency corruptly saw the Court through a very corrupt period of not just rapid technological change. But, indeed, it was Chief Justice De jersey who was responsible for selecting & appointing the judiciary to hear specific purported Queensland Court cases.
Hence, I believe it was Chief Justice Paul De jersey who is ultimately responsible for having corruptly stacked & rigged the judiciary he selected to allegedly hear my Appeal matter against TELSTRA & STEPHEN JOHN MEAD in 2002. That Appeal was in relation to a 23 December 1996 malicious prosecution committed ex-parte by TELSTRA & MEAD in which by malicious perjury MEAD had sworn ex-parte a MSJ prepared Complaint sworn while before Magistrate W. J. Smith. Mag Smith failed to do any due diligence to cross check the content context within MEAD’s materially false & perjured Complaint. The now late MEAD was not just a Telstra in-house legal directorate officer but he was a secret partner in MSJ at the same time, while Mallesons were on Telstra retainers to defraud me as a Casualty of Telecom (CoT) victim, byway of a 1800 prefix systemic fault from 1993 not located until 1994.
Hence, I was falsely arrested without any valid Apprehension Warrant & without any Qld Police Interview at any time whatsoever & by medical needs I by chance that night got bail despite in hindsight it was prearranged ex-parte that no bail was to be given. The charge bench officer panicked when he knew My medical needs. he was in on their frauds.
De jersey as the Chief Justice, now as Governor, the various Queensland Attorney-Generals, its retainer bribed Solicitor-General, subsequent Solicitor-General’s, Magistrate W. J Smith, MSJ partners, Prime Ministers are collusively still covering-up in 2018; that in 1996 Telstra & Mead had inflicted a false & a maliciously bogus Wrongful Arrest & False Imprisonment to assist the Commonwealth via TELSTRA to keep avoiding to pay systemic 1800 prefix fault restitution of property owing to Me for businesses loss, injury & damage unjustly suffered.
In Brisbane in the 1997 Magistrates Court it found it to have been a 1996 Wrongful Arrest and in the 1998 Brisbane District Court of Appeal it was up held that it was a Wrongful Arrest, thereby they had inflicted a Maliciously False & Wrongful Imprisonment on 23.12.1996.
Moreover in 1997 MEAD admitted he never has the necessary Telstra Board resolution to be capable of ever supporting the content & context of what he had sworn in the Complaint. But they concealed that MEAD was also a MSJ partner acting in abuse of legal process from within TELSTRA to profit from the proceeds of their MSJ CoT mishandling crimes. Plus they conceal that from 1995 the Chairman of TELSTRA was also the Chairman of MSJ partnership. Then the Head of the ASX ready for the 2006 invalid Telstra three float.
From 1999 they were sued by Me for their malicious prosecution, but, during that 2002 Appeal, I and others first-hand witnessed that DAVIES JA, GERRARD JA & WILSON J had each repeatedly stated the Appeal Book Evidence proves that KEANE QC had definitely misled the trial judge.
So they judicially then called a recess & the retainer bribed dual income KEANE QC was called into Chambers behind closed doors, they then tactically rewound the tapes to then tape over their witnessed statements that KEANE QC had definitely misled the trial judge.
In hindsight KEANE QC from 1992 to 2005 was also the SECOND HIGHEST LAW OFFICER in the STATE of QUEENSLAND who took from late 1999 in this CoT matter his corrupt retainer bribes funded by Commonwealth public funds to in exchange provide special favours of judicial & political protection to defraud Me further. All occurred under De jersey’s watch!
Also in hindsight we note that in 2005 KEANE QC again took DAVIES JA position with political elevation. DAVIES JA was the Solicitor-General before KEANE QC became the Solicitor-General in 1992 to 2005. Plus, they failed to disclose that GERRARD J was an articles clerk then a prosecutor in Solicitor-General office before being politically judicial elevated. WILSON J, she was an articles clerk at a Brisbane law firm under KEANE & under his from late 1999 bribery instructing MSJ Partner Justin A. McDonnell.
Now KEANE QC is a HIGH COURT of AUSTRALIA alleged trust worthy & an honourable Judge; hence KEANE QC is tainting every HCA decision that KEANE QC is involved in until he is expelled from the HCA; but the Governor-General has a faith that conflicts with the doctrine of the Crown & De jersey is the re-leaving Governor-General by being the shady purported Governor of Queensland.
Such, Corruption simply breads more and more Political, & Judicial Corruption!
Thanks Ken invalid it is, just like Queensland Inc the corporation masquerading as government. The State Governor DeJersey is supposed to be a great legal guru. He accepts his pay from the corporation each fortnight so he is as complicit as Beattie. Editor
I believe it is called fiduciary malfeasance/misfeasance/fraud wherein the trustees of a Foreign corporation sells the beneficiaries property without permission.
It would be interesting to see the names of the signatory to the sale of our assets as they are the ones responsible for the theft.
One look at Treasury documents regarding GOC’s, reveals that the ultimate owners in Queensland are the People and yet these fiduciaries steal our wealth. This corruption is rampant and there is no remedy available at the ballot box. The moment that the man/woman agrees to be the all capitals trustee name held on file at the Electoral Commission they cease to exist as a living man/woman. They have been tricked into acting as a fiction [JOHN HENRY DOE].
Perhaps the Attorney General Queensland could add this crime [holding of false names on file] to the charge sheet for the Electoral Commissioner.
The key to all this is, “By what authority” do they have to sell our assets? Unless they are acting as a Board of Directors and treating the voters without their knowledge as shareholders unknowingly legitimizing their fraud and that is why voting or not voting is the key.
Their Achilles heel is the “Proclamation Certificate” for any assumed authority.
They are not able to produce this certification of authority. Therefore they have none.
By voting for these pricks we are prolonging the solution and granting them authority.
In the mythological saga of “Merlin” the only remedy in the end was to turn their backs on Queen Maab. When they did that she ceased to exist.
As a “People” we have unwittingly contributed to our own problems by allowing these “Parasites” to proliferate and prosper. Just look at the wealth of these pricks. They enter Politics with little and leave multi millionaires. Whilst “We the People” ail in subservience.
The worm has turned, now we are the servants and our employees are making the rules over us. They have become the beneficiaries of our toil whilst they fatten up on our hard work.
Wake up, we have unwittingly been enslaved!
It is not utterly dishonourable misconduct by our Elected Politicians within the Commonwealth of Australia; given that we have two (2) first political parties who engaged in self-serving revolving governments of the Coalition Government & of the Labour Government, failing to provide any stable governments since 2006?
Those two (2) said political parties have chosen to engage in self-serving internal individual’s ego’s & selfish personal interests, that is politically unacceptable & resulted in political unrests & instability & are severe forms of misconduct in public office high positions of trust.
Such political party infighting & instability has dishonourably occurred against the best interests of We the People of the Commonwealth of Australia since 2006 to December 2017 by such engaging in politician’s infighting, we were dishonourably forced to endure at least seven (7) Prime Ministership changes & seven (7) political party disruptions.
Plus at least nine (9) deputy Prime Ministership changes and nine (9) political party disruptions to additionally endure some eligible changes & one constitutionally HCA found to be ineligible to hold any office. But, is free without any perjury penalties against him & then by more dishonourable deceit again he became the Deputy Prime Minister for this time around a few weeks until his years of deception & infidelity caught him out.
He was Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce who invalidly & illegally had unlawfully passed by his crucial vote the Telstra full privatisation legislation in 2005 while ineligible to hold any public office & was not a valid Senator, but, is rendered an invalid share float.
Those Politically unstable Political Party infightings & politically unconscionably inflicted Political Party disruptions do & have hindered this Market Concealed CoT matter from having had any stable Cabinet Members leadership since late 2006. Hence the 2006 insider trading & market manipulation frauds white-collar-crimes of the Howard Coalition Government are still swept under their revolving files filling cabinet fixtures & carpets.
Rendering us Lawful Sovereigns of the Commonwealth of Australian to be left a bit like having had no Captains at the helm, without any rudders to steer the in distress sinking ship & thereby incapable of rescuing the ship, the passengers and or overboard crew.
Does give rise to the question for Your Consideration, if at the next Federal Election, if over 50% of we the voting public wrote on their ballot papers, NO CANDIDATE IS WORTH MY VOTE. Would that then result in forcing a second FEDERAL ELECTION? If so, would that then prevent those we the people had just rejected political candidates from re-standing again in the second FEDERAL ELECTION, leaving them without a job?
If so, then that would give we the people a clean ship with a fresh new political start without such political party’s dishonourable self-serving people milking us & who have ignored to refuse us our constitutional rights to have a FULL BLOWN SENATE INQUIRY to assist in protecting CoT victims?
Their political unrests have resulted in unjust inabilities to politically make & or to adhere to any necessary Cabinet Members decisions. As such those political instabilities have produced unsustainable Cabinet position leadership changes, & has inflicted on the people disruptions that do equate on average to having, had to endure in just the last eleven (11) years from 2006 until late 2017 being this previous year.
Hence, we have been forced to face every 1.57 years a retracted position of the Prime Ministership & every 1.22 years an altered post of the Deputy Prime Ministership based on mere averages.
See: http://www.cabinetdeceitfultactics.com To see more on why the Telstra Privatisation is invalid.
My father worked for the PMG, Telecom, Telstra all his life and from what he told me over the years you article is spot on. As for anyone who believes privatisation is a good thing all I can say to them is ‘how do you like your phone service, water rates and power prices’?