By enormous and sustained effort, women have made some gains toward realising equal opportunities in the workplace. Gains yes, but gaps remain, and progress is slow.

Why is that?

The Group of 20 (G20) meeting has brought many of the world’s leaders to Brisbane with an agenda centered on facing into today’s challenges and creating a better tomorrow.

One critical issue for discussion is the need to invest in new infrastructure.

Better roads, ports and other key facilities are all about improving the competitiveness and livability of our cities, facilitating economic growth and creating new jobs.

I want to clarify a statement that was attributed to me in a media article about the performance of our contact centres in Perth.

At a function yesterday I was asked about language challenges our customers report when speaking with people in some of our contact centres.

The point I made was that when we look into reports about accents, often we find the customer was actually speaking to someone in Australia. Perth was merely cited as an example, as we have many centres across Australia.

I went on to reinforce how critical it is that all of our people have good communication skills and are held to the same high standards of customer service.

The customer landscape is shifting as digital technologies enable new ways to conduct business and new business models.

Few would have dreamed, even as recently as 10 years ago, the extent to which customers are now connecting with businesses online, buying products and services online, raising and resolving issues online, and sharing their views on the quality of the experience with their own online communities.

Online piracy is an important issue that often leads to heated debate with passionate views on all sides. But it is a debate we must have, as more needs to be done to help protect copyright in this country.

There have been a range of views expressed as part of the Government’s consultations around changes to copyright law and there will be further discussion when Malcolm Turnbull hosts a public forum on the issue next week. Telstra is actively participating in this policy process (see our submission here) because this issue is important to our customers and we believe industry needs to take the lead in achieving a reasonable, practical solution to the problem.