On the 19th of October 2000, The Howard government's plan to privatise the remaining 50.1 percent of Telstra ran into further problems, because of the release of a report from an inquiry examining the state of services in regional and rural areas.
The Howard government is caught in a bind. It has to press ahead with the full privatisation of Telstra in order to stem the erosion of market confidence not only in the corporation but also in the Australian economy as a whole. At the same time, however, its moves in that direction threaten to further alienate rural voters and exacerbate tensions between the coalition parties.
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