State-owned enterprises of Australia
In Australia the predominant term used for SOEs is government business enterprise (GBE). Various Australian states also have GBEs, especially with respect to the provision of water and sewerage, and many state-based GBEs were privatized in some states during the last decade of the twentieth century. Former Commonwealth SOEs include Telstra, established in the 1970s as Telecom Australia. Telstra, now Australia's leading telecommunications company, was privatized in 1997 by the government of John Howard. As of June 2010 Telstra owned a majority of the copper wire infrastructure in Australia (the rest is owned  by Optus) and is pending sale to its former parent, the Australian government, for a non-binding amount of 11 billion Australian dollars, as ducts in the copper wire tunnels are needed to install the fiber optic cable. The Commonwealth Bank, as its name indicates, was also founded as public company before later being privatized. In Victoria many GBEs were sold in the 1990s to reduce the state's level of debt. The State Electricity Commission of Victoria and the Gas and Fuel Corporation were the best-known government enterprises to be disaggregated and sold. Australian Government. , there are nine  GBEs of the Australian Government, comprising two corporate Commonwealth entities and seven Commonwealth companies. The Government also has other public non-financial corporations (PFNCs) that are not prescribed as GBEs: Australian Capital Territory. The GBEs of the Australian Capital Territory include: New South Wales. The statutory state-owned corporations of New South Wales include: Northern Territory. The GBEs of the Northern Territory include: Queensland. The GBEs of Queensland include: South Australia. South Australia is notable for having very controversially privatized most of its GBEs: Tasmania. Tasmania has a considerable amount of GBEs, relative to other states: Victoria. The GBEs of  Victoria include: Western Australia. The GBEs of Western Australian include: