Telecom charge upsets elderly

Press, 9 August 1988, Page 3

Telecom charge upsets elderly

The Canterbury Aged People’s Welfare Council has been inundated with calls from elderly people “really upset” at the changes to telephone rentals, said the council’s secretary-manager, Mr Charlie Waters. Mr Waters said that his telephone went non-stop from when he opened the office at 8.30 a.m. yesterday, just after the increased residential charges were announced. It had produced a greater influx of calls than any other issue, possibly because superannuitants had just been told in the Budget that they were not getting the usual sixmonthly benefit increase because of low inflation,

he said. “They are angry because they have put up with so much pretty quietly, for so long.” Mr Waters said that old people only had enough money to pay the rental, not tolls, and that, while Telecom’s rationale was commercial it had been brought about by Government policy. “The.... Government really cannot hide behind the petticoats of Telecom,” he said. Communication was one of the biggest needs of old people, and he was advising them to do without a television rather than relinquish the telephone, he said.