One reason NOT to vote Labor

If you ever wanted a good reason not to vote Labor (aside from the many good reasons out there already, such as Labor’s previous financial mismanagement, or Labor’s Communications n00b, Stephen Conroy being demonstrated as uninformed by the current Communications .. well, better than n00b, but she’s no script kiddie, Helen Coonan, some time ago when the speeds proposed by Conroy were 6Mbps, to which Coonan politely outlined that many were getting 12 – 24Mbps).

The reason is simple, in a recent article published on “The Australian”s website, it is written:

TELSTRA is holding detailed discussions with the Labor Party about its proposals for a high-speed broadband network.

Not a big problem there, except they are holding detailed discussions with the party who said they’d spend money from taxpayers on a network the private sector are happy to build, Telstra no doubt are wanting a big piece of that, and also the ability to price services at exhorbitantly high prices.

But The Australian has learnt that Telstra’s head of regulatory affairs, Phil Burgess, has been in regular contact with Opposition communications spokesman Stephen Conroy and other senior ALP figures.

Here’s the big problem. Fat Phil himself has been talking to Stephen Conroy.

What’s worse than an uninformed idiot?

An uninformed idiot that appears to the masses to know what he is talking about.

That’s what seems to be getting created here with Telstra’s chats to Conroy, and that’s not a good thing. I never want to see Conroy in charge over key decisions on the nation’s telecommunications network, he has previously demonstrated himself to be the wrong person in the wrong job. Give the communications spokesperson job to someone who actually knows about communications, and can at the very least learn a little more about regulation of that network.

Putting Labor up with Conroy in charge and Telstra’s self appointed Lard together at the top of the nation’s network is a recipe for high prices and low competition.

The nation needs and deserves better, and fortunately enough, better does exist (no, its not greatly better, sorry folks), the better of the two is Coonan, who has clearly shown at least a way out of a very sticky situation that the government had created (selling Telstra as one item in the first place).

I believe with Conroy there, taxes would rise, or the outcome would be something that would affect the industry very negatively.

The way they’ve got themselves out of that mess is very good so far. The new Expert Taskforce being the key for metro areas, and the great decision of OPEL for regional areas.

Coonan was likely looking forward also when she decided that the taxpayers shouldn’t fund a network the private sector would pay, because if you spend the money, you gotta get it back one way or another, and a government spending more money than they have? Well the money comes from your back pockets. So, best keep Coonan in for the future, and avoid paying more for a basic service now that the current government have actually opened their eyes a little wider to the broadband landscape and the issues surrounding it. (I would expect them to be more proactive in future when more issues arose with innovation -assuming they did).

With all that in mind, one can safely assume however, that many, many users nationwide would be doing perfectly fine with an uncapped (both directions) ADSL1 connection, maybe if a government committed to delivering that, and just that, costs would blow down, and we’d have more proposals on the table from those willing to do that?

On the other hand, there’s no kidding ADSL has its limits, so a wireless technology is probably more ideal.

Enjoy!