National Broadband Network

Queensland has been a notorious capital of gerrymander and pork-barrelling, but never anything quite like the NBN.

For two elections it has delivered bacon for Labor. In 2007, it was universally lauded. By 2010 Malcolm Turnbull had excoriated the economic case, but people privately hoped their home would be next in the queue and done for free.
 
At some point in 2012, with Labor in its worst political shape since polling began, the NBN has shifted from nation-building to furniture saving.  NBN Co’s roll-out plan for Brisbane has been effectively traced off the AEC maps of Labor seats and the correlation is jaw-dropping. In fact you are eight times more likely to get the NBN before 2015 if you live in a Labor seat.

Continue reading "Making the connections with Labor’s NBN pork barrel" »

Disability is the untold story of the NBN. I don’t care about faster movie download speeds, or better virtual gaming. The NBN is technology which creates accessibility for Australians with disability. That’s why, while there are many critics, I’ve agreed to become an NBN champion.

I want to spread the word about how people with disability can capitalise on the accessibility benefits the National Broadband Network (NBN) has to offer.

High-speed broadband, delivered by the NBN, will take many Australians currently locked out of our community, and connect them - sometimes for the first time in their lives.

Continue reading "Don’t dis the NBN’s abilities" »

The right to digital access, should be a right we expect like a right to equality, or accessibility.

Recent debate about the price households will pay for their broadband as the National Broadband Network (NBN) is rolled out, has raised issues such as affordability.

As that debate continues, it is important to also focus on the need for digital inclusion to improve quality of life, and on extending opportunities - particularly in employment.

Continue reading "The digital divide is a denial of human rights" »

Last week all six crossbench MPs in the House of Representatives gathered to be photographed for a newspaper with all the ease of men who know they share a loose but important bond. They were Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott from NSW, Adam Bandt from Victoria, Bob Katter from Queensland, Tony Crook from Western Australia, and Andrew Wilkie from Tasmania.

Off to the side of the Parliament House courtyard they occupied was another man, not a member of the group, but familiar with them.

It was Liberal front bencher Malcolm Turnbull, the shadow minister for communication, and he stood quietly monitoring his iPhone.

Continue reading "Turnbull is dancing to the beat of a different drum" »

As the National Broadband Network juggernaut rolls on, one has to wonder if any thought has been given to the obvious danger that the NBN may fail. NBN supporters assume that it will succeed. This crash through or crash approach is a very dangerous way to pursue government policy objectives.

In this context, failure can mean a number of things. For starters, the NBN could fail financially. This could include construction costs spiralling out of control where, for example, labour and skills shortages drive up project costs.

The NBN Corporate Plan itself reveals that at the height of construction up to 6,000 premises per day will be connected to the NBN. That’s a lot of premises and a lot of skilled labour which means lots of risk to the NBN. Any delay in connecting such a larger number of premises would delay completion of the NBN. Any delay would substantially increase project costs and threaten the financial viability of the NBN.

Continue reading "The NBN juggernaut could turn into a white elephant" »

Julia Gillard and Stephen Conroy have just released the full business plan for the National Broadband Network, saying taxpayers would get a 7 per cent return on their $27.5 billion investment, and it would take nine years for the network to reach 10 million Australian households.

The business plan foreshadowed wholesale prices of $24 per month for the basic 12 Mbps, and $38 for 100 Mbps. But neither Gillard, nor Conroy, would speculated on what a fair retail cost for consumers would be.

The Prime Minister would only say that with greater competition would come lower prices for householders. What would you be prepared to pay for the standard or ultra-fast fiber packages set to be rolled out over the next decade?

On 7 April 2009 Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan, Lindsay Tanner and Stephen Conroy surprised Australians by scrapping Labor’s National Broadband Network (NBN) election policy and announcing an ambitious rejigged ‘national’ broadband plan at ten times the cost.

But 12 months to the day and the $43 billion surprise is still just that, all surprise and no substance to its delivery. Australians are yet to get one extra megabit of speed, or send a single packet of data down the Minister’s pipe dream network.

Labor first stumbled by ignoring the Prime Minister’s own advice on policy evaluation that; “Policy design and policy evaluation should be driven by analysis of all the available options… We’re interested in facts.”

Continue reading "Happy birthday to the NBN, shame it’s a fizzer" »