CONCLUSION
35 For the reasons outlined above the ABS considers Telstra to be effectively privatised from 20 November 2006. For pragmatic reasons the ABS will continue to treat Telstra as a public sector unit for the December quarter 2006 and as a private sector unit from the March quarter 2007. As such the changed classification will not impact on published December quarter 2006 estimates. However, as noted above, the sale of Telstra shares will affect some data series in Financial Accounts (cat no 5232.0) and Balance of Payments and International Investment Position (cat no 5302.0) in the December quarter 2006 publications.
36 The changed treatment of Telstra will not impact on economy-wide measures of economic activity such as gross domestic product, balance of payments, labour price indexes and employment. However, for a range of ABS published statistics the changed classification of Telstra may cause significant increases/declines in the levels of the affected statistical series and in turn overstate the magnitude of the estimates of change for the March quarter 2007. These will carry through to the seasonally adjusted estimates. For the affected series it may be necessary to suspend the publication of the trend estimates for the March quarter 2007.
37 ABS will ensure that the treatment of Telstra is appropriately brought to the attention of users in the affected March quarter 2007 publications.
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