To the Honourable the President and Senators, and to the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:

The petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully shows that:

As members of the Australian community, considering:

   the strategic importance of Telstra in the national economy;

   the high levels of foreign ownership in the rest of the telecommunications industry;

   the growing importance of communications services to the lives of all Australians;

   the threat that privatisation poses to the universal availability of both present and future communications services;

We believe that it is in the national interest for Telstra to be kept in full public ownership.

We therefore call on the Federal Government to abandon its proposal to privatise Telstra, the nation's chief telecommunications provider, and to explore alternative means of funding its environmental policy.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.