Fed: Alston still has plasma television at home

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Fed: Alston still has plasma television at home

By Linda McSweeny and Denis Peters

CANBERRA, Feb 11 AAP - Communications Minister Richard Alston today resisted oppositioncalls to immediately return an expensive wide-screen plasma television on loan from Telstra.

Senator Alston argued he needed the set - on short-term loan from Telstra - as partof his job and gave no indication of when he planned to return it.

Telstra loaned the minister the television four or five months ago so he could personallyexperience the technology.

It is not clear when the TV will be returned, but Senator Alston's spokesman said heplanned to give it back to Telstra.

Senator Alston yesterday told a Senate estimates committee he accepted the loan ofthe television, worth an estimated $10,000, to experience the technology by watching sport.

The loan was approved by the prime minister and declared on the senators' interestregister in September last year.

Opposition communications spokesman Lindsay Tanner described the loan as an outrageousrort and demanded Senator Alston return it.

Mr Tanner said Senator Alston's explanation was a joke.

"How can he possibly say that it's taken five months to work out that you get fantasticpictures on a plasma digital TV screen?" Mr Tanner told reporters.

"Any ordinary person would work that out in five minutes.

"This is an outrageous rort. The prime minister should step in, force him to apologiseto the Australian people and to return the television immediately and to start fixingthe digital policy TV disaster that he's got on his hands."

But Acting Prime Minister John Anderson dismissed Labor concerns during parliamentaryquestion time, saying the loan was no surprise.

"If this were a matter of such extraordinary national interest and such enormous surprise... as far back as September, the Courier Mail recorded that the loans made by Telstrawere being duly placed on the national record," Mr Anderson said.

Senator Alston said he was at first concerned about accepting the offer because ofthe criticism which would follow, so he consulted the prime minister.

"Well, my first inclination was that (accepting it was) probably not (a good idea)because I could see that it would be subject to criticism," Senator Alston told the JohnLaws radio program.

"That's why I went and talked to the PM about it.

"And we said, well, you know, is there a public policy purpose involved here? And theanswer was, clearly, look, this is not about entertainment.

"I'm not home all that often. I'm lucky to get home at weekends, but otherwise, very rarely."

After careful consideration he accepted it and decided the experience of wide-screentelevision was exciting stuff, he said.

Senator Alston said the issue was not one involving taxpayers' funds.

"But we're not talking about taxpayers' funds here of course," he said.

AAP lm/sb/pw/ts

KEYWORD: PLASMA NIGHTLEAD