It also must be said that they are the only real Australian mobile company. Three are part owned by Hutchinson Wampoa of Honk Kong (or is it Orange in France, I can't keep up as Three is always changing hands it seems-nobody wants them?) Optus is Singapores Singtel, Vodafone is UK owned, Virgin UK owned.
I guess you could say that used to be true, but are the majority of shareholders in Telstra Australian owned companies? I suspect you would find a lot of big international companies on their share register. I don't know about the others, but Im pretty sure you could buy shares in Singtel Optus if you wanted, but just like Telstra the 'mum and dad investors' don't really have a say in the running of the company.
So for Telstra a chunk of their profit goes overseas just like the others - the benefits of privatisation I guess.
At the end of the day none of them are 'Australian owned', but they are giving jobs to Australians, and their main focus is on developing business in Australia - with the possible exception of Telstra who do have the market sown up here and so must look at overseas investments and opportunities in a bid to grow their business.
Personally, I still wish they didn't get it because of the knitting comment - but if they are going to play at least let them provide competition to keep everyone competitive.