The Wire

The soon to be privatised Telstra is under fire again for trying to save money on one of it’s key obligations – providing a national network of public phones. Everyone from The nationals to The Greens has criticised the plan to remove up to 1000 payphones over the next 12 months. Even the Liberal communications minister Helen Coonan has told Telstra that every single payphone thats taken away must be justified. In the past 6 years 17 thousand phones have disappeared and Telstra believes the popularity of mobiles justifies this move. But critics say there are still millions of people in rural and suburban areas who rely on public phones.