When Tony Abbott announced his communications policy this week the widely held view was that Telstra would be overjoyed and its boss, David Thodey, would throw his weight behind the Coalition.
There would be no forced separation of Telstra's retail and wholesale business, no gun to its head to divest its interest in Foxtel or be starved of new digital spectrum.
But there was no public response from Telstra. Yesterday, when Thodey came out of hiding to release the company's 2010 full-year profit, his opinion was expressed by what he didn't say. He didn't come out in support of Abbott. Instead he badged himself politically agnostic.
When pressed on the issue during an interview with the Herald he ducked and wove, saying only that he was happy with the deal he had cut with Labor on establishing a national broadband network and he would be recommending it to shareholders.
Could it be that Labor's policy to force Telstra to exit its old fixed-line network and compensate it with an $11 billion cheque is now considered a better business outcome for Telstra? And could it be that Telstra management has come full circle and would now embrace Labor policy?
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