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Theresa Gattung - Source: NZPA / Ross Setford
Growing executive salaries at Telecom and government-imposed telecommunications reforms have been slammed in a new book by the company's former head Theresa Gattung.
In the book, Bird on a Wire, to be published next week, Gattung said executives at the company now were pulling in significantly more money than when she was in charge and questioned whether that was warranted when profits were dropping.
She also details the toll the stresses of the job had on her and suggests that, as a man, current chief executive Paul Reynolds has faced less scrutiny than she did.
Gattung told The Dominion Post the Labour Party's telecommunications reforms, including giving competitors access to Telecom's exchanges, would ruin the company and suggested the swag of executives who left following her departure in 2007 might have contributed to the problems the company has been facing getting the new XT mobile phone network up and running.
Labour MP and former communications minister David Cunliffe is criticised for his treatment of Telecom and his party is accused of attacking the company for political gain.
Gattung's pay package while at Telecom was about $3 million and she was paid out $5.4 million when she left in 2007, while Reynolds' salary and incentive package is worth around $7 million.
Watch Theresa Gattung's interview with Mark Sainsbury on Close Up, Friday 7pm TV ONE.
