The mother lode of rich dividends has made Telstra a retail investor darling. Even some institutions belatedly realised what a bargain the telco giant had become once it was rid of its previous management. The non-believers though forever questioned the sustainability of those dividends.

Telstra under CEO David Thodey maintains it's the company's superior mobile offering and the explosion of data that will keep the money rolling in, along with realising that it is supposed to have customers rather than prisoners. Now the new federal government might be about to provide another very valuable answer to the dividend growth question.

In the box seat: Telstra CEO David Thodey. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

There's no end of speculation brewing about exactly what will happen to the NBN with the election out of the way and Malcolm Turnbull taking charge – and the speculation isn't about fibre to the node or your nose or your house or tractor or whatever. I'll leave that debate to the tech heads. The more immediate question is what is going to happen to NBN Co – the rather strange beast that's meant to be rolling out all the optical fibre.

The coalition has formed the opinion that NBN Co is a much worse performer than Steve Bracks and costs vastly more – but it is chaired by Lachlan Murdoch's right-hand woman, Siobhan McKenna, and therefore has to be treated a little more carefully than Bracks. It would be less than gracious to be disrespectful of all things Murdoch after the past three years.