Abbott Not the Only “Non Tech Head”

Seems that it is not only Tony Abbott who does not understand the broadband policy of his own party, after claiming to not be a "tech head" when quizzed on the particulars of the policy, but also the party in general don’t seem to get it either.

Fast Broadband to Go to Colac, Lorne, Apollo Bay

“Liberal candidate for Corangamite Sarah Henderson did not know which communities would receive the 12mbps under the Opposition’s plan. She said that information would be collected and made public within six months of the election should the Coalition win government.”

Doesn’t the Liberal policy state that 97% of all Australians will receive a minimum of 12Mbps? The Labor policy is for 93% fibre (up to 1Gbps), 4% wireless (minimum 12Mbps), and 3% satellite (minimum 12Mbps).

That’s 100% of the population with a minimum of 12Mbps. Even at 97% of the population – (the same amount of people covered by the Labor using fibre and wireless) – the Liberal policy SHOULD match the Labor policy for coverage area – minus the satellite component – speed notwithstanding.

More and more, this Liberal broadband policy seems like a “back-of-a-napkin” plan, hatched at the last minute, and not “designed” to have any real technical merit, but more so specifically to be cheaper than the Labor plan. It will certainly not actually achieve much for the economy of Australia over the next 50+ years.

So yes – not only is Tony Abbott not a “tech head” – it seems the whole Liberal Party are not “tech heads”. They even make Stephen Conroy look like he’s got half a clue.

And that says a lot!

The Great Filtering Bluff

There has been great change in the dynamics of the internet filtering debate in recent weeks, particularly with the Coalition promise to block any such legislation in the Senate, in line with the stated policies of both the Greens, and independent senator Nick Xenophon.

Given the sheer weight of numbers a combined Coalition/Greens/Xenophon vote in the Senate would have over any Labor numbers, it seems that even if Conroy and the Labor party persist with passing the legislation through the lower house – (if they win the election on August 21) – that it is doomed never to pass into law.

Not to be outdone, Senator Conroy spoke on NSW country radio station 2CS earlier this week, stating that he would “seek changes at the censorship board level” to work around any blocking of the legislation in the Senate.

Sounds rather anti-democratic, doesn’t it? Well, such an action would be just that, but I actually doubt he would have any real ability to do so. More so, I believe his statement that he’ll circumvent parliamentary process to get his way, is nothing more than a double-pronged bluff.

With a number of recent major policy changes by the incumbent Labor government, such as the famous climate change policy backflip, and the change of heart over the so-called "Resource Super Profits Tax" on the mining industry, the Gillard Government is not ready for another major policy turnaround.

It would seem that fearful of another voter backlash from another embarrassing policy change, Conroy has been jumping up and down to sure up the appearance of government resolve towards the filtering policy. The election already appears to be a tightly run race, so every vote will count.

Changing their mind – (at least publicly) – before the election on yet another policy would promote an image of mistrust – particularly amongst swinging/undecided voters. Conroy and Labor know that the filter is doomed, but have to appear strong to the electorate to win votes.

So in the first instance, flipping again will lessen the number of swinging voters that swing in their direction come August 21st.

In the second instance, the fundamentalist Christian vote – undoubtedly the major lobbying force behind this policy in the first place, and constituting almost guaranteed votes for Labor almost on the basis of the filtering policy alone – would feel betrayed if the government backed down.

So Conroy and Labor are publicly standing up for the policy to win/save some votes now, knowing full well that even if they win the election and the legislation passes the lower house, that it’s doomed in the Senate.

The recent announcement that the filter would be delayed until a review of the classification system is completed provides the out for the government.

After the “review”, the government will have an excuse to change its position. They’ve saved some face BEFORE the election, and the policy will be – (they hope quietly) – taken outside and put out of its misery.

I feel Conroy and Labor are bluffing. They know its doomed, and what they’ve done is made sure that they can clean things up as quietly as possible later.

Twitter Advertising Model Appears

Seems that the much-anticipated – (yeah, well) – advertising model for Twitter is finally showing its face to the world.

The model calls for the ability for advertisers to pay for their tweets to be inserted into your Twitter stream, and for promoted topics to appear in the list of “trending topics”. I was sceptical at first as to how obtrusive they might be – the “Promoted by Verizon Wireless USA” is only a mouse-over event – so the little yellow “Promoted” badge seems okay at this stage.

If they stay as innocuous as the screen shot above, I think they’ve found the right balance.

Coalition Broadband Numbers Dodgy

There is a glaring and gaping hole in the Coalition plan announced yesterday to replace the National Broadband Network (NBN). Despite being a vastly inferior solution, it simply does not add up with their own statements made during the announcement.

Certainly, I’m not talking about whether their costings of almost $7b are “right” or “wrong” – (I’ll leave that up to the accountants) – but I could not help but be disturbed by some massive assumptions they appear to have made in regards to the formulation of their policy.

During the press conference, Liberal communications spokesman, Tony Smith indicated that there did not appear to be any indication of any likely “significant uptake” of the NBN once it is rolled out.

Coalition Unveils Broadband Policy

“Smith says the Government is spreading a myth that Australians want to pay for 100Mbps services, and realistically, the demand just isn’t there.”

Firstly, nobody is suggesting that everyone will want or need 100Mbps – there will be many options between 10Mbps and 100Mbps available for people to choose from, as demonstrated by these iiNet/NBN plans.

Secondly, the recent deal between Telstra and NBN Co to migrate all of Telstra's copper-network-based customers onto the NBN as the network is progressively rolled out blows the Coalition argument completely out of the water.

Almost every premise in Australia will need to be connected to the NBN’s fibre network – (and therefore generate return to NBN Co) – because the decaying Telstra copper network would be decommissioned. Not only would this obviously be a significant uptake of the network, it would be close to 100% uptake in fibre-enabled areas. Even if 50% of the people who currently pay for a copper-based POTS service decided not to continue with a fixed line service on the NBN, the remaining 50% is still a huge number.

Sorry Coalition, but if even basic numbers and concepts like these are beyond your grasp, I can’t trust the rest of your numbers and concepts in regards to this. Especially when your proposal seems like it was baked up on the back of a napkin over breakfast yesterday morning before the press conference. You clearly do not understand the difference between “broadband” and “internet” – although related, they are NOT the same thing.

The Coalition completely missed the point for the sake of having a policy that looks good to the average Joe Schmo, who will only see the difference between $7b and $43b. Clever politics maybe, but terrible policy. Big fail for them on this one.

ACL: Out of Touch?

Without wishing to suggest either way as to whether the ACL as a organisation has a positive or negative effect on the current federal election campaign, I do have to wonder about some of their actions, or inactions, as the case may be.

I just took this snapshot from the front page of their website, and it seems they have not gotten around to updating some graphics:

The ACL claim to be “in touch” with the beliefs of Australians, yet haven’t gotten around to updating their heavily politically motivated website with an image of the new Prime Minister?! Something that happened weeks ago? Surely if they believe in their message enough, they should be studiously updating the information they present to the public, so as to remain relevant, and credible?

The ACL is an organisation which claims to speak for mainstream Australian beliefs in this election campaign, particularly on the issue of “bad stuff” on the internet, and that their beliefs in this regard must be applied to everyone. Well, ACL – myself, and many others – do not believe in your want to ram censorship down our throats. The Coalition and the Greens have called you out on this, and look set to deem the policy to failure.

Which incidentally it already was.

I have heard both the government and the ACL claim that the mandatory filter would not be censorship at all, when of course it really is. Censorship, which by definition is:

“Policy or programme of censoring”

So what is “censoring”? By definition it is:

“To delete (a word or passage of text) in one’s capacity as a censor.”

The same page defines “censor” as:

“An official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.”

Textbook. Censorship. Definition.

Senator Conroy himself actually said “blocking material is not considered to be censorship” – which we can now see is an idiotic statement – particularly in the light of the above definition.

This is why you and your friends over at the ALP are left standing with egg on your faces. You believe your own rhetoric on this issue so much, that you’ve completely lost sight of what it is you are proposing.

Censorship. I really hope that the Coalition and Greens stance to vote against the legislation is really annoying for you – because the whole policy has been annoying a lot of Australians for a long time.

When The Same Thing Has Two Meanings

In reading about today’s sentencing of the complete dimwit who accepted the keys to a Ferrari F430 Spider – (that was not his) – from a valet parking attendant from Melbourne’s Crown Casino in May this year, I found an interesting comparison between the two major newspaper outlets in Melbourne.

From this article from The Age, the culprit was found guilty, and “jailed”.

From this Herald Sun article, the same culprit was found guilty, but “not jailed”.

So which is it, was he jailed, or was he not jailed? Technically, he was. He was jailed for four months, to be served concurrently with an existing 35-month sentence for an unrelated matter – so he’ll serve no additional time. Interesting that the same result can be interpreted in two completely different ways!

No Place for Short Sightedness Over NBN

There has been much press over the weekend over former federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull's opposition to the forthcoming National Broadband Network (NBN), a network which has already commenced rollout in Tasmania (via a pilot site), and is preparing for the rollout of pilot sites in a number of mainland locations.

Turnbull has labelled the network as “dangerous and a “potential white elephant“.

While there are many potential pitfalls, I feel that what Turnbull does not understand – (or at least show that he understands for the purposes of political point scoring) – is that the NBN will not operate under a “normal” business model.

People who are in any way thinking the network needs to recoup its oft-proported pricetag of $43B back quickly, is kidding themselves. The life of the NBN will be measured in decades, and the fibre being laid has already been show in the laboratory to be capable of delivering much higher speeds than the proposed 100Mbit barrier of the NBN. The NBN in its initial form, would therefore be barely pushing what it could be ultimately capable of.

Once operational, absolutely the NBN needs to be profitable – but we need to ignore the setup costs – (whatever they turn out to be) – for a moment, so we can look at the picture in a bit more of a wide-ranging way. The NBN is not just about internet. People need to start separating the concept of “broadband” and “internet” – they are not the same, and should not be considered the same. Many more kinds of services will be available over the NBN, many of which haven’t even been dreamed up yet.

We build multi-million and billion dollar freeway infrastructure in this country, without any case for the “money” to be returned. The “return” is the increased economic activity that will be supported by the existence of those freeways over the life of that infrastructure. This can also be equally said of rail infrastructure. You build a $300M ring road around a city to bring more than $300M of increased economic activity to the region that ring road supports over it’s lifetime. Obviously there are maintenance factors, but that’s all factored into the equation too.

The NBN is a freeway, and nobody disputes that $43B is a very large amount of money. The question is, over its lifetime, will the NBN provide more than $43B of benefit to the Australian economy? In my opinion, absolutely.

The cost advantages for S2S (site-to-site) and B2B (business-to-business) connectivity using the NBN in lieu of existing options will take care of a lot of that value all by itself. Inter-capital bandwidth in Australia is ridiculously expensive by world standards. The mere SAVING of money that business would be otherwise spending on overpriced and outdated inter-capital connectivity, can be directly injected into other areas of the economy, such as research and development – and this is only one example. There are also many potential flow on benefits.

For example, large numbers of people for whom telecommuting would not have been a consideration in the past will suddenly be presented this as a potential and viable option. Many more people working from home, for even a few days each week, leads to there being less people driving on the road. This leads to obvious environmental benefits, lower road maintenance costs, and the takng off of pressure from already crowded and failing public transport systems.

If people are not on the roads as much, there are less accidents, and therefore less road trauma, and in turn this reduces costs for the struggling health system in this country. Less accidents mean less pressure on both automotive and health insurance premiums. I’m sure there are many other ways you could extrapolate the very existence of the NBN to effects on other parts of the economy.

With the NBN you absolutely have to look outside the normal “box” of thinking. In the old Australian economy, the NBN is ridiculous, but in the new Australian economy the NBN would allow to be created, it will be crucial. If we do not transform our economy away from one that relies on the “sheep’s back” as it is often described, we will slip so far behind when every other country does this, that we’ll be absolutely nowhere.

At Least He Didn’t Fall Into a Colon!

With absolutely no desire to be flippant in regards to the death of this chap, one must point out the rather unfortunate typo from this Geelong Advertiser article:

At least it was a comma, and not a colon or a full stop!

ACL Certainly Loves Censorship

With an apparent but cautious victory for common sense in the mandatory internet filtering debate, which will likely see the death of this ludicrous proposal, it is interesting that both the Australian Labor Party themselves, and the Australian Christian Lobby – the main proponents of this legislation outside of the government – still believe that they can achieve the introduction of the policy. This despite the apparent impossible numbers the legislation seems very likely to face in the Senate.

Coalition ISP Filter Announcement Incomprehensible

It seems that no matter what, they insist that they are right, and that the anti-filter movement is wrong. In fact, they believe in censorship so much, that they are clearly being extremely heavy handed with the moderation of comments on the above article.

I posted a comment at 11:08am – more than an hour before the currently first visible comment – that appears to have annoyed them enough not to approve. Here is what I commented:

“Actually, ACL, do you know what is incomprehensible? It is your complete inability to understand that people in the electorate DO NOT WANT this filter. This is not about your beliefs, it is not about those of Labor, or Senator Conroy. It is about what people want. Unlike yourselves and the ALP, the Greens, the Coalition and Nick Xenophon have ACTUALLY listened to the people. Sorry, but that’s democracy.”

For the ACL to attack the Coalition for taking a position on the policy as “incomprehensible”, it is certainly a bit sour for them to censor out my comment for labelling their position as “incomprehensible”. Clearly, they do not like a little hard and fast truth over there at the ACL.

It is certainly time to stop censoring political speech – something both the ACL and Labor are at pains to suggest should be protected. I don’t care that they choose to censor my comment, because I have my own outlet – right here.

I’m sorry ACL, but you have tried to silence the masses, but the masses have spoken. The Greens, the Coalition, and independent Senator Nick Xenophon have listened.

Maybe it is time for you to listen as well, and read the writing on the wall. The legislation is still-born. It’s time to let it go. I am a parent, and I will decide what my child can and cannot see online. Not you. Or anyone else.

More V/Line Pointlessness

Doing a quick scan of my Twitter feed last night before snuggling down into bed, I read the following tweet from the “often absent” V/Line “information” account, “@vlineinform”.

I mean, what is the bloody point? At 21:29 you “anticipate” that the 21:05 will be 15 minutes late? I mean seriously, what?

It either left nine minutes ago, or it will be more than 15 minutes late!