Re: Money raised for taxpayers?
By leaving one of the major bidders out you reduce the price which will be paid for the spectrum, potentially dramatically. The fact that Telstra have received payments from the government here for other purposes is irrelevant.
The question essentially comes down to whether setting a 20% maximum on the amount of this particular chunk of the spectrum is worth the lost revenue from the sale of this spectrum. This revenue loss will be significant as after Telstra, Optus and Vodaphone there really isn't anyone who is going to spend a lot of money on Australian spectrum.
In essence is it better to have one or two providers pay a lot of money for the spectrum and be able to deliver better services because they have more bandwidth available or to have 5 or more owners of the spectrum, with at least some of those companies paying very little and likely being unable to deliver much in the way of services.