Australia, your own government ripped you off. If you are an overseas reader, Telstra was previously a government owned telecoms company until big daddy decided to float it and extract as much wealth out of Aussies as he could with a giant con that it was a great investment for for the average family. The con was split into three stages so they could falsely drive the price up.
If you factored in inflation, this graph would look twice as bad – and it already looks terrible.
I would hate to have bought shares in this giant government dud. Years back I worked for a company that handled tech support for them. It was a nightmare. All Telstra ever does is try to rip off its customers every step of the way. They do not try and be competitive – they simply use marketing and shady policy to try and extract as much $$$ out of you as possible. You can find practically every service they offer at much cheaper prices elsewhere. Even with my 20% off staff discount I would have been a moron to take up their services. Maybe if they tried actually competing their share price would be better.
http://ozhouse.org/2012/03/07/australia-your-own-government-ripped-you-off/