Singapore Accused By Stokes Of Snooping
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday June 22, 2001
The chairman of the Seven Network, Mr Kerry Stokes, has stepped up his campaign to thwart SingTel's takeover of Cable& Wireless Optus, warning that the Singapore Government, SingTel's majority shareholder, had a record of listening in on phone conversations of its citizens.
``I am not going to tell them how to run their country but their way is totally foreign to our way,' he told the Herald.
``To my mind, SingTel sounds good as a company but SingTel is not a company, it's a government," he said.
``Singapore doesn't have the the best of human rights records. It does have different standards to Australia. It doesn't believe in free speech; it doesn't have a transparent democracy, all of which are fundamental to the way we do business and the way we conduct ourselves." he said.
Mr Stokes said it had been reported that the Singapore Government eavesdropped on phone calls and interrogated computers.
He also pointed to a Fortune magazine article which reported that General Lim Chuan Poh, Singapore's top soldier, and the number two bureaucrat in the Singapore Ministry for Communications, were on the board.
Mr Stokes has already lodged a submission with the Foreign Investment and Takeovers Board opposing the takeover.
But following public statements in the past few days by the Minister for Defence, Mr Reith, suggesting that national security concerns raised by his department would not be an obstacle to the deal going through, Mr Stokes has stepped up his campaign.
As a result, Mr Stokes has come in for criticism himself, with some close to the deal accusing him of being motivated by his own commercial interests.
A source close to the deal said yesterday that Mr Stokes was behaving ``like desperate man".
``He sees Australia set in the 1950s and fails to see the difference between public policy and his own commercial self interest," the source said.
The future of Seven's pay TV sports channels, C7, which is carried by Optus, is uncertain beyond the end of this year, when it loses the AFL rights.
Seven's mobile telephony business, B Digital, also resells the Optus network.
``Tell me what I win out of this?" Mr Stokes asked when the suggestion of a commercial motivation was put to him.
``There is no commercial advantage for us.
``What I have been concerned about is that B Digital has 185,000 subscribers, who use the Optus network and they will have no say in a foreign government controlling their phone calls. The same goes for Optus subscribers."
Mr Stokes said he had been moved to action because he hated doing business with governments.
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald
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