VHA, the joint venture which operates the Vodafone and 3 brands in the Australian market, has announced the recruitment of Bill Morrow as CEO, replacing Nigel Dews. Morrow is a Vodafone veteran, having previously led the firm’s operations in the UK, Europe and Japan. Morrow’s most recent telecoms industry post was as CEO of US WiMAX player Clearwire, from which he resigned citing personal reasons in March last year.

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) accounted for the lion’s share of complaints to the country’s telecoms ombudsman in the last quarter. On the day the company was due to hold its annual general meeting, the ombudsman recorded 14,670 customer complaints about VHA between January and March this year – an increase of 96 per cent over the previous quarter.

Australian carrier Telstra has agreed to offer warranties on all handsets that match the length of the contract to which the handset is attached. But the Apple iPhone is not covered by the agreement, raising concern at the Australian competition authorities.

The Australian government has solved its differences with the country’s operators, which were vying to build out a national broadband network, by proposing to undertake the A$43bn task itself.