Sydney- Australia’s largest telco Telstra on August 3 took the extraordinary action of launching proceedings in the Federal Court against the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan. At issue is the Broadband Connect Program, by which the government decided to contribute A$1 billion (US$856 million) to a consortium led by SingTel Optus and Elders to build a broadband network in rural and regional Australia, after rejecting a proposal from Telstra. Formerly government-owned, Telstra said it had asked the Minister to explain why it was not given an opportunity to submit a revised proposal and to provide it with the documents underlying her decision, and the Minister refused. Telstra claimed it had no alternative but to seek orders from the Federal Court compelling the Minister to provide documents relating to how the decision was made. It added that it has serious concerns that it was not treated in a ‘fair and equitable’ manner as required by the Program Guidelines that were issued.