If Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley were to re-appear in contemporary Australia and remake her most famous novel, Telstra would be the monster. John Howard would be Dr Frankenstein, and Richard Alston would be Igor.

The privatisation of Telstra is arguably the worst of the Howard Government's economic failures. It was a classic example of putting ideology before economic sense.

Selling off a government-owned business in order to reduce capital debt is not, in itself, a bad concept.

Selling off a highly profitable government-owned business can work if done properly.

Selling off a highly profitable government-owned business whilst it still holds a monopoly in several areas is bad policy.

Allowing this same business to run rampant in terms of trade practices, monopolistic conduct and executive self-aggrandisement whilst still a majority shareholder (as the Commonwealth was until last year) is simply negligent.

Telstra should never have been privatised in its current makeup. Infrastructure where duplicity is uneconomic, notably fibre optics, should remain in national hands. Telstra's non-core businesses such as Foxtel, Sensis and Bigpond, and its retail telephony business should have been spun off into privatised companies, in full competition with Optus, Austar, Vodafone, Iinet and the like.

It's appalling that Telstra is both the wholesaler of ADSL infrastructure and a retailer of ADSL connectivity. No surprise that they've been slapped with the odd wet trout or two by the ACCC.

It's against this backdrop that Telstra shareholders yesterday produced one of the most stunning voting outcomes in Australian corporate history.

They were asked to give their support to new, much improved renumeration packages for Telstra executives, 1.83 billion proxies were cast in favour. 3.63 billion voted no.

It was, of course, a non-binding resolution. And, of course, the Telstra board will ignore it. CEO Sol Trujillo's total renumeration package will increase from the $11.8 million he earned last year to a potential $22 million, dependant on reaching certain targets. The detail of these targets has been withheld from Telstra shareholders.

The next government of this country needs to have the courage to stand up to the Telstra monster and other such corporate cowboys.

Reportage of yesterday's shareholder insurrection from The Australian, the Daily Telegraph, ABC radio (PM) and television (Lateline Business link to be added later).