Forum Archive Index - January 2000

[Michael Sprott <MSPROTT@clear.co.nz>]

Hugh,

Late reply to Hugh's email below. I maybe biased in this response (see the
email address). The big difference between the environments in NZ and those
of the UK and Australia where Telstra and BT operate is that there are
telecommunications regulators operating in both those countries to make sure
that Telstra and BT do not overuse their monopoly power against their
competition. Telstra and BT are simply not allowed to operate in the same
way as Telecom NZ do in NZ. 

ms



> -----Original Message-----
> From: hugh webber [SMTP:hugh.webber@clear.net.nz]
> Sent: Thursday, December 23, 1999 7:39 PM
> To:   sharechat@sharechat.co.nz
> Subject:      [sharechat] Hostile Investment Enviroment
> 
> my impression of the action so far is that this gov't is considerably more
> left wing than the Tony Blair British government. On the positive side you
> have Cullen coming to an arrangement with the Reserve Bank which doesn't
> really seem to have disturbed RB functioning and the apparent dropping of
> an anti free trade stance but some of the other stuff fills me with
> trepidation. Statements that free markets cannot be used to get the
> results
> they (Labour want) want; no more SOE & floats, raising the minimum wage at
> the expense of jobs, and a belief that they can invest money better than
> anyone else can e.g. new super money (Muldoon would be having them for
> breakfast over that but no reaction yet from the Opposition) and in R & D.
> Surely the quality of the investment counts a lot more than the size, how
> much extra exports do more state houses produce?
> But the one who really gives me the willies is Laila Harre who apparently
> is seen as the next Alliance leader. She said her first priority was to
> get
> stuck into Telecom. She's the Associate Commerce Minister with a totally
> irrelevant degree and obviously doesn't have a clue. Here's Telecom now an
> NZ coy again, or close to it, a large part of many NZers retirement
> savings
> whether they know it or not, on the wave of future technology to make NZ
> more competitive and she wants to attack it. Can't she see the hypocrisy
> of
> Clear (British Telecom) and Telstra in attacking Telecom for operating in
> the same way as they do in their own home markets?
> 
> But as someone said, I guess this is getting a bit political, batten down
> the hatches for 3 years. The only consolation is that with rapid
> globalisation its getting harder and harder for any domestic government to
> take us out of the international mainstream.
> 
> I was going to go mostly offshore but thought we might get a Tony Blair
> type gov't so am only about a quarter diversified overseas. Ouch.
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To remove yourself from this list, email sharechat-request@sharechat.co.nz
> with "unsubscribe" in the body of the message, or use the unsubscription
> form at http://www.sharechat.co.nz/forum.html.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To remove yourself from this list, email sharechat-request@sharechat.co.nz
with "unsubscribe" in the body of the message, or use the unsubscription
form at http://www.sharechat.co.nz/forum.html.