Since coming to power in 1999, the Labour/Alliance government has announced a number of Inquiries. A pattern is emerging – the Inquiries are conducted by the likes of David Caygill, former Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister in the 1984-90 Rogernaut government, and Hugh Fletcher, leading big businessman. Caygill’s recommendations on the electricity industry were innocuous to the point where even Tory papers such as the Press editiorialised that the Government must go further. Fletcher’s draft recommendations on telecommunications likewise called for "lighthanded, self-regulation". We tend to think that these self-regulators are actually a bunch of self-abusers.

CAFCA’s submission on telecommunications was written by Murray Horton.

The submission of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) is brief and to the point.

We believe that telecommunications is a strategically vital part of any modern economy, and that it is far too important to be left in the hands of squabbling transnational corporations such as Telecom and Clear (and the rest of the Johnny come latelies). We believe that it is a function that should be publicly owned and performed by the State.

We believe that the 1990 sale of Telecom was a major mistake (crime would be a more accurate word). We are far from alone in this belief, indeed a very clear majority of New Zealanders share it, which is extraordinary, considering that the sale took place ten years ago. Not even a decade of corporate propaganda and "evidence" has shaken that view. An April 2000 National Business Review/Compaq Poll found that 61% thought that the sale of Telecom was a mistake (and that figure had increased since a similar 1997 poll). We most definitely have a mandate on this one.

Dealing specifically with Telecom, the evidence is clear (pardon the pun): it has profiteered mightily in its decade of foreign ownership, exporting a phenomenally high percentage of its annual profit (98.1% was paid out as dividend in the 1998/99 financial year); it has abused its monopoly in relation to other phone companies, Internet service providers and the general public; it has allowed service to deteriorate to the point where big city exchanges have crashed on a number of occasions and essentials such as emergency public phones have become scarce; it has abused its ownership of things such as the numbering system, phone cards and the Yellow Pages; it has treated its own workers in an appalling fashion, with mass redundancies, the downgrading of conditions, and a policy of de-unionisation; it has treated communities all around the country with contempt in its ceaseless drive to erect cellphone towers. This is not to say that the other telecommunications transnationals are blameless – far from it. But Telecom is the biggest and the worst. It has consistently behaved as a bad corporate citizen.

Nationalise Telecom, With No Compensation

In the case of ACC, the Government is closing the door on private providers and restoring a State monopoly. We see no reason why the same cannot be expeditiously applied to telecommunications. There is no reason to be daunted. This country has spent the best part of 15 years seriously addressing major political mistakes from the 19th century, namely Treaty of Waitangi claims. This is a major political mistake that dates from a much more recent, and abnormal, period of our history. Let’s rectify it.

Foreign Control Watchdog, P O Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand/Aotearoa. December 1999.