National Museum of Australia's lack of an Exhibit on Telecommunications.
The RMA have been dissatisfied by the presentation afforded telecommunications in the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. The museum depicts key objects events and milestone that were relevant in the building of our nation. There is little more than an old fashioned telephone handset to demonstrate the contribution made by the telecommunication industry. It is our belief that our industry played a major role in the building of our nation and as such deserves a far superior presentation to portray the impact it has had. To achieve our goals we have written to the minister responsible for the museum, the minister for communications, the curator of the museum and we sought the help of various back benchers. Our last communication was from the responsible minister of the previous federal government and we were invited to communicate directly with a representative of the ANU. We believe it to be impractical to have major hardware displays at the museum due to the vastness of our ever changing technologies, so we sought to depict an example of what could be displayed graphically. To this end our newsletter editor Paul Rewhorn put together a timeline chart that portrays the development from 1854 to the present day. It was our decision to seek the support of Telstra. To this end we wrote to the CEO David Thodey and sent a copy of our chart together with copies of all our correspondences. The CEO has replied and has decided that Telstra was not interested in supporting such a venture. Not to be thwarted in our endeavors we have decided to approach the museum directly and verbally. We are currently awaiting to have this conversation with the nominated representative. The historical timeline is placed on the website as a membership service. John Lane Vice President Communication Workers Union Retired Members Association