This is to Amanda. Amanda you have NO idea about this situation with the Techs/Engineers do you? The alternative they are being offered is to get into debt, & to be available for work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week with NO guarantee of work or code prices. The prices that have been worked out equate to less than $5 an hour in some cases. Which is illegal. Would you put up $60k of your own money for a business plan that your accountant & lawyer has said is flawed and will cost you money? I don't think so. Please educate yourself first before spouting absolute rubbish.

Wake up NZ and smell the broadband ... NZ is in the sh^t and we need good econmoic performance .... companies performing well .... strong and creative leadership ... well done Telecom on its results, and Paul Reynolds seems to be making a huge impact. Corporate culture is, pretty much, everything in driving and sustaining good performance - this is what good leaders get paid good dosh for in an international market. It is no wonder our country is lagging with such narrow-minded bleating as in most of these comments - comments that desire mediocrity in corporate performance ... prob the same people that want the health budget to grow more without thinking that corporate taxes (yup, good company performance) are needed to pay for it. Wake up NZ.

In this society we have created (you included) there are a lot of inequities, hard working nurses, inspirational teachers, community sports coaches being some obvious ones, telecom engineers not so. If you have only the skills to sweep streets and flip burgers like a "real worker" you will be rewarded very little. I you study hard, word smart and can gain the skills and experience to prove you have the capacity to effect great change, deal with rampant egos, people, politicians and complex decision making, you will do well.

If all you can do is knock these sort of people because their skills are so rare they command a magnificent salary, sorry folks, but you are another narrow minded whinger. If this outrages you, go improve yourself, work hard, respect others and celebrate the efforts of those who do like wise.

Well I am a telecom shareholder, currently holding 151,000 TEL shares, I'm completely satisfied with Paul's remnueration package, what he is doing for the company and it's owners is fantastic and I think he's worth every penny. If we paid peanuts, we'd get another monkey, we don't want to go back to those days. To recruit someone of his calibre you need to pay an international CEO salary, I'm sorry, but that's what it costs and all you wingers should get over it, the reality is that it's not costing you any more, it's costing me as a shareholder, if you are not a shareholder then you have nothing to complain about.

I'm prepared to take $2.5m to halve profits next year!

Comment 61 says "@ Jo - and hence I don't use any of Telecom's services. They are rubbish so why should someone be paid that sum for dismal broadband and poor pricing plans." and I agree, there are plenty of great smaller ISP's out there with competitive prices and fantastic service, we voted with our feet and now use www.netspeed.net.nz in Chch

Most Telecom staff were told because of economic downturn there would not be any pay increases this year. This information came from the upper levels of the comany. PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH.

So how much do the CEOs of Telstraclear and Vodafone get paid - can't understand why telecom get singled out - guess what they haven't been part of the "Post office" for years and the lost my business years ago.

And how can Paul Little make any credible comments about CEOs paypackets - did he take a payvut when he took on the Labour Party Presidents role or are the members of the EPMU subsidising that role nowadays?

Or has the feedback on this topic been co-ordinated by those with a vested interest...

Typical bad attitude of NZ'ers - can't handle it when people are more successful than they are so they try to tear them down. Plus has nobody noticed that Telecom isn't actually the employer of the linesmen? It's the companies like Downers, Transfield and Visionstream who employ them and control whether or not the workers get redundancy or not, not Telecom. I have a lot of sympathy for the tough situation that some workers are in, but did they forget signing the contract that contained no redundancy provisions? Or did they just forget to take out redundancy insurance? They would've known for ages that the previous contract their employers had with Telecom was due to expire be reviewed - yet it still didn't occur to them to do something about their own security? You don't hear LWW staff making such noise, and slinging media mud, or trying to blame their vendors for not ordering enough of their product - and those workers weren't even offered alternatives to redundancy! Everyone just wants to sling their mud at Telecom again. And half of you who think you don't use Telecom's services are probably fooling yourselves - you're just putting one more company in between Telecom and you as your middleman - in most areas it's probably still Telecom who paid for the infrastructure that you use, and the company that you're getting your services from in many cases is just a re-seller. But hey better to go and put your money with a global Giant based overseas like Vodafone right? Vodafone - who probably doesn't even bother investing in NZ infrastructure and creating the linesmen jobs in the first place? I'm sure they'll be laughing all the way to their foreign bank, esp. their CEO who's probably getting twice what Telecom's is. I also wonder if it has occurred to anyone that Telecom PLANNED to cut profit in favour of investment in Infrastructure. If they didn't invest, then maybe Mr. Reynolds could've increased profits by 1.3 Billion - against which his $5m package pales in insignificance.

To compare a CEO's package in NZ with one in the USA or Europe is entirely irrelevant given the size of the markets they are dealing with. In NZ a $5M salary is outrageous and entirely unjustified. I totally agree with the poster above pointing out that Testra's CEO in Oz get $2M. Go figure.

And yes, I have long abandoned Telescum myself and can't wait for an unbundled network to become available in my area. Alas, Telescm still have the squeeze on and won't release their cabinets to competitors. Unbundling, yeah right! this is a Company who can only operate in a monopoly situation. They have not learnt to compete in a free market.

On another note, we have been waiting for a fault with our landline to be fixed since last Thursday. Thank you Mr. reynolds. You sure are up with the play in customer service!