It’s nice to be needed on the other side of the world -- particularly when you’re 75.
Sir George Jefferson flies off six times a year from Perth for a few days in London, to chair meetings of Videotron, the cable company franchised to serve 1.25 million homes.
He was one of the major architects of the sensational decision 14 years ago to sell off British Telecom, employing 250,000 people, to the private sector; the first attempt in the UK to privatise a major public service utility. It followed British Telecom’s separation from the Post Office, and ended its monopoly of telecommunications. ‘There were considerable reservations about whether they would be able to do it,’ Sir George says. ‘In actual fact, the share offer was four times over-subscribed and thousands of employees and members of the general public became shareholders. Five thousand shareholders attended its first Annual General Meeting.’
When he arrived at hits offices in 1980, British Telecom was stolidly old-fashioned with an out-of-date network, large parts of which had not been renewed since before the Second World War. It worked with electro-magnetic switches kept operating by technicians manually sanding down contact points. The employees, he remembers, "were mostly good, loyal, very nice people with a strong family tradition. They were highly unionised and tended towards being conservative and defensive because the monopoly was ending." Some managers though, appeared to be more influenced by the need to have files in good order for possible Parliamentary questions, "than in efficiently managing their business in an enterprising and customer-oriented manner."
When the Conservatives made it known they favored selling off the revered old service it created uproar - much of it flying around the head of Sir George. ‘But the British public liked the idea of owning part of BT and the successful float made history, pioneering the privatisation of other government-owned corporations.’
After it happened, Sir George departed and became involved with a competitor company, Videotron, first established as a cable TV company and now, he says, enjoying a larger income from telephone calls than it’s revenue from Pay-TV. As chairman he helps guide its "nipping at the heels" of BT.
As he packed his bag for another 20-hour flight across to the other side of the world, he said: ‘I don’t think I will be doing these trips very much longer at my age. I need to sleep on the aircraft, because I do a full day’s work after getting into Heathrow at six o’clock in the morning.’ The secret? ‘I avoid alcohol, avoid too much food. And I take a sleeping pill which gets me six to eight hours’ sound sleep.’ He has been making six visits a year for the past five years and enjoys the role of "fathering young men I wouldn’t have regarded as young at their age."
With Australia debating the politically divisive Federal Government decision to sell-off a third of Australia’s communication giant, Telstra, Sir George’s opinion and memories of the BT drama are sought. However he refuses to become embroiled. Nobody from the new government has approached him for advice, he says. ‘I specifically avoid getting involved in it. We are talking about a different country and things are not the same as they were in England.’
Nor will he debate the heated argument on whether Australian Pay-TV cables ought to be allowed to be strung from poles already carrying phone wires. ‘Australia,’ he points out, ‘has traditionally run its utility services of telecommunications and power overhead, whereas the UK for many years, has done it underground. Now, for Australia to go underground, would be a great deal more expensive. Having lived most of my life with the system running under the ground it is somewhat surprising in the first few minutes you arrive in Australia, to see the power poles. But they are part of the landscape and you get used to them; you stop noticing them.’
Sir George and Lady Jefferson chose to live in Australia because their children and grandchildren lived in Perth and the weather in winter was decidedly more pleasant. Looking years younger than his age, he works hard at keeping fit. He says he was he was astonished to be told recently that he needed five heart by-passes. He had the operation and was soon back in the air. He enjoys walking - but not around a golf-course. ‘I could never get excited about hitting a little ball along the grass.’
He watches with interest the progress of Telstra’s rival, Optus Vision, which offers an alternative telephone service as well as Pay-TV. He believes Optus could snare some 30% of the Australian phone-user market over the next five to 10 years. It won’t worry Telstra, he feels, because the total market is increasing at a similar rate. ‘The same thing happened with BT. Despite the introduction of competition there has been a substantial increase in revenue.’
When he is in London, and if he gets some spare time away from board meetings, "which isn’t very often", he enjoys watching his own company’s Pay-TV. Pay-TV is not yet available to him in Perth, but when it is, he will subscribe.
‘I want to watch entertainment that is not continually interrupted by advertisements.’
