Abbott's cuts are reckless, says Conroy
- 22 July, 2010 10:58
- Comments 21
Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has described Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, as "reckless" and election promises to save millions by dropping a training fund for Telstra employees and other sections of NBN Co's deal with Telstra as "senseless cuts".
Yesterday, the Coalition issued a PDF document with a list of budget savings measures. In it, it promised to slash $100 million planned for the establishment of a universal service obligation company - USO Co - to replace Telstra's bush obligations as part of its deal with NBN Co. The Coalition has already promised to scrap the National Broadband Network Company if it takes office but has not yet released its alternative broadband police.
"Tony Abbott’s cuts put Telstra shareholders at risk of losing a deal worth $11 billion to the company and regulatory certainty,” Conroy said in a statement yesterday. “These senseless cuts demonstrate the consequences of Tony Abbott’s reckless decision to shut down the National Broadband Network.”
Abbott and the Liberal party will cut the Government's e-Health project and funding for school laptops as well as the flagship NBN project.
Conroy stated yesterday that the Coalition had no broadband plan of its own, and had failed to produce and implement its own national broadband scheme after being in power for over a decade. “The Coalition has no broadband plan today and in their 12 years in government they had 18 failed broadband plans," he said.
The press release also reiterated Conroy's belief that the NBN was “crucial to economic infrastructure” and that Australian businesses will not be able to compete with countries in South-East Asia and Japan if the project does not go ahead.
Conroy wasn't the only Labor Senator to attack the Coalition on broadband grounds yesterday.
Kate Lundy slammed fellow ACT Senator Gary Humphries (a member of the Liberal Party) for what she said was Humphries' acknowledgement that the Coalition would abandon the pending early stage NBN fibre rollout in the broadband-starved region of Gungahlin in the ACT.
"The long suffering residents of Gungahlin have had to cope with some of the worst Internet services in the country," she said. "Last week Liberal Senator Gary Humphries was trying to claim credit for the announcement that Gungahlin is one of the early rollout sites for the National Broadband Network on the mainland."
"The Liberals policy to dump the NBN, without an alternate plan, and with a long legacy of failure in addressing the issue of delivering high speed and quality networks or even a competitive telecommunications industry presents a real issue for all Australians, as well as the 25,000 jobs that will be supported every year through the NBN rollout."
Humphries had told ABC Radio in Canberra that the NBN was a "very large white elephant", and that the Coalition would need to work through how locations like Gungahlin would be provided with broadband services - in the wake of the NBN being abolished - if the Coalition took government.
He referred to previous broadband plans held by the Coalition when it was in government, noting he was sure they would have solved Gungahlin's issues "in due course".
Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.
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Comments
Chris Schneider
Would the article not be more "Conroy says Abbott's cuts are reckless" The important part is Conroy said it. The guy does know anything and is taking comments from people with interests in the network or people who have no clue (kind of like him) I do like that we are starting to see two side of an argument not like what we were getting. The NBN is not here will not be here for most of use for about ten years! there are alternatives right now that could be implement with 12 months! Lets look at things that will increase competition. We all ready have a wholesale retail environment. Lets find was to encourage Wholesale competition. More Last mile options this is what will drive the industry into the future... Will we expect the government to pay for the next new thing to? With Wireless starting to become a force the fixed infrastructure will need an update to compete but when the time comes companies will see the tipping point and start implementing new option. Fibre is the future but why do the tax payers have to pay for? Why not the uses? Just a note I would be one of the users I just don't see why the government needs to pay for my internet connection. I was doing the research into upgrading my estate when the NBN was announced. Now I can't go round and ask my Neighbors to pay their part when they can wait a few years and get it for free! There were developments like this going on all over the place and now they have stopped because you can't compete with free! I was not doing this to make money just to get internet in my community adsl does not work. and everyone if on Wireless. Three years ago this was a very good option for people because of the cost of wireless I wonder whether we have now missed the boat?
Sydney Lawrence
Get real Tony Abbott time is running out. Release you policies on the Broadband issue post haste. Voters want time to study your policy.
Jimmy
Abbott and Conroy are just as reckless as each other. Kill the internet filter idea off and concentrate on the NBN and stop calling people who are against the filter as pro kiddy porn supporters.
Dump the filter Conroy and people will take you more seriously and you get the NBN to play with..................................
Tim B
Slow internet is better than no internet... Which is what Conroy's filter might give us.
Holly
@Tim B
Well I think no internet is a little exaggerated, but if I want to view a censored source of material, I'll go to a library. Just because conroy can't stop looking at kiddy porn and wants the government to control his access doesn't mean we need censored internet.
Bad parents don't like being told that they are bad, but the truth isn't always easy to accept. The truth is the internet is not a babysitter, and everytime you dump your kids on the net with no supervision, you are neglecting them.
Don't have the time to look after your children properly? Then STOP HAVING THEM. Problem solved.
And conroy would fit in well at china, he shares very similar views about how people should be controlled.
zag
Overall NBN is a step backwards.
Sure fibre is fast and all but you'll only have 1 network and then everyone else piggybacking off that 1 network.
Right now the AVG cost for 30gigs of data in Australia is around $80, and that's with 10 different backbones, makes you wonder what the real cost will be when it's only 1 network..
Yet the NBN is supposed to reduce the overall costs of it? yeah sure, and when has a Government owned company suddenly slashed costs because it was cheaper to do so, I've only known them to cost more.
The current NBN pricing is cheap for a reason it's all about getting people to sign up so they are hauled off the copper and then the price gets jacked up again and they won't be able to do anything about because copper no longer exists for their use.
As someone else said wonder what people will do when there's a power cut and every service on the NBN goes down like a pack of cards.
RS
@#6
In respose to your comment... LOL!!!!
That's all that really needs to be said.
Laurie
@Chris Schneider
re: Now I can't go round and ask my Neighbors to pay their part
The very fact you would planned on asking your neighbours and hoped they would see the benefit of joining in and paying their part is testament to the fact you believe and counted on them believing the basic premise you're arging against: that collective contribution to and ownership of this sort of infrastructure makes sense. If it made sense at the estate level it makes more sense on a national level, not less.
Phil
zag, you clearly have no idea how the NBN will be structured. The NBN is primarily a CAN (Customer Access Network).
NBN Co are not going to build backhaul between PoI's (Points of Interconnect), at least not technically. The Regional Blackspots Progam is doing that now. The backhaul that NBN Co talks about is between the PoI's and the CAN.
So it is NOT one network. Telstra, VHA, Optus, Pipe will still have their fibre linking PoI's. I'm quite certain that an ISP would not have to pay IP costs for the fibre between the PoI and the customers ONT because as I said, that is not backhaul, it would be included in the port cost.
And to Chris Schneider, for the love of God, would you please learn how to spell and use adequate punctuation. Hell, just using paragraphs would be helpful! You know, maybe you the government should spend more money on education so people such as you can learn better grammar.
Tyrone
@Phil #9
+1 lol
nutjob
Chris Schneider is a classic: Fibre is the future and wholesale competition is key and the answer is to abandon the NBN and stick with the current situation which has given us neither and will never be in a position to. Telstra is a structural monopoly and will remain so for a long time, sucking the profits out of the industry. It has no motivation to build a better network when it can make obscene profits from the copper network that THE TAXPAYERS PAYED FOR and was stupidly sold by the Coalition government. The remaining payers can't compete and have no money for a new network. We are in a hole and the conservative solution is to stay in the hole. People complain about download limits but that was a Telstra "innovation", there weren't download limits before they introduced them.
This, like roads and sewers, is just one of the things the government is in a better position to do rather than industry. We're a big country with a small population and this is the most efficient solution.
Michael
Agree with Nutjob. Some things are better built by government. If we waited for a business case, we may not have that new freeway that is needed. If we behaved this way in the past, then we would not have telephones as the copper would have been expensive, and they would have asked the valid question as to which householders wanted a phone anyway. The same rule applies for power than is connected to our houses. Governments are the only people who can pay for big infrastracture. The government is paying for an asset that will last for years and be used by everyone. I see it as similar to the road down my street. Who did a business case to support that expense by the local council
Michael
Some people have referred to wireless as the answer. Wireless is OK as long as not too many people use it. For example 3 Mobile has cheap wireless, but because so many people use it, the speed has dropped considerably. If we all went to wireless then the speed will drop. I notice that at home with my hone wireless network. If the 2 kids get on with the laptops the speed reduces. Fibre is the way to go.
Mike Johnson
Abbott is a fool and Conroy isn't far off. As for the filter it wouldn't effect me and if it did I am highly confident in being able to easily circumvent it, it's a basic URL filter nothing more.
Slade Squire
@Mike Johnson (#14)
Your point about cirmcumventing the filter has nothing to do with there actually being a filter. Great that you can get around it... But what about everybody else that can't?
Should they be exposed to a filter? Does the Australian nation really need to be protected by its government by things that are deemed "RC"?
Surely, it makes more sense for filtering to be optional. That way, a parent can choose whether they need to filter their connection or not. I'm a new parent. When my boy grows up enough to use the internet, I'll be filtering his connections whether there is a mandatory filter or not. But that's my choice. Nobody elses choice to make. It should be a checkbox or option when you sign up. Do you want to filter your internet? Y/N?
As far as the NBN is concerned, I wish all the facts were completely out there. I'm a massive fan of upping the internet connection speeds. Progressing with the rest of the world. But if its gonna cost me $100's per month, will I be prepared to pay? Surely they can split off the Telstra sections, then work within that to improve service in the mean time. It seems like a hell of a long time before the NBN will be ready to go.
Phil
A case of the pot calling the kettle black? This is the guy that won’t listen to technical advice unless it supports his theories. This is the guy that has never worked in industry (any industry). This is the guy that commissions a $25m report from consultants that says his $43 billion estimate for NBN (with a whole bunch of variables) is within 0.4% of their ‘expert’ estimate, and he doesn’t question it. Yeah right Conroy, we know who is reckless.
Josh
Im sure there are better ideas out there than the NBN. My only beef with current aussie internet at the moment is bad international pathing and natural latency that we will never get rid of because we are so far away.
This site is pro ALP though and does not try to hide it. If your vote is swayed by just the NBN and the internet filter issue - I fear for my paycheck and tax dollars.
masealake
No matter who will win a government?
Hung parliament result the fact people wanted fairer live resources supported
“Health Olympic Australia” is a nationally and international significant movement in the 21 century “knowledge economy” in “Health Economy Gold Rush”:
● By pass all economy in human history that benefit to every habitant on earth;
● All habitant must to face either lost, or to win;
● The dead lock situation either lost health supply, or getting enough supply to win the battle of health demands in health rebuilding in her/his own right efforts to achieve wealth creation.
There are at least five economic productivity outcomes will resulting significant GDP progressing from a “Health Olympic Australia” as follow:
1. Reductions in Australian Health Workforce cost;
2. Reduction in Healthcare cost;
3. Reduction in lost productivity cost;
4. Increase from agriculture outcome;
5. Increase from “Health Olympic Australia” creation in goods/products exportation.
Ma kee wai
(Member of Inventor Association Queensland since 1993)
masealake
What Australia hung parliament demonstrating deep in voter’s heart?
Australia citizens now enter a very challenging political era for 70 years in the 2010 federal election, many reforms are demanding by voters are looking for a change with anger to share fairer resources supplied lives from the first term of government?
Voters handed down their decisive votes during election time are looking for an efficient, effective and economically run government. A high transparency in less mistaken caused processing under no discriminately enforced services government. A long term wealth creative vision with fast action moving forward progressing resulting value add to voters benefits in each term of governing.
Voters are crying for action right now to have improved resources support lives that suppose lead by a government in the following eight commitments:
1. What vision of prosperity voters seen?
2. Why action not enough in the past 3 years?
3. How many election promises has been fulfilled?
4. Where productivity motivation to voters?
5. What materials to speed up election promises processing?
6. Why some election promises in powerless process?
7. How far transparency in each department service voters wanted?
8. Where prioritized direction to empowerment the nation?
Ma kee wai
(Member of Inventor Association Queensland since 1993)
masealake
What time bombs will rock Australia democratic society?
The Australia historical hung parliament demonstrated the big gap of inequality society between the small educated elite groups who get highest pay by talk feast used mouth work controlling live essential resources of the country in every social platforms against the biggest less educated groups who get lowest pay by hands work squeezed by discriminative policies that sucking live blood from poor/less wealth off?
Voters’ voices do not hear?
Voters’ pains do not ease?
Voters’ cries do not care?
1. Poverty will not be phase out if no fairer resources to share;
2. Illness will not be reducing if no preventive measurement in real action;
3. Agriculture will not be revitalize if urbanization continuing its path;
4. Housing affordability will not be reach for young generation if government continues cashing from young generation debt by eating out the whole cake of education export revenue without plough back;
5. Manufacture industry will shrink smaller and smaller if no new elements there to power up to survive;
6. Employability will not in the sustainable mode for so long as manufacture and agriculture not going to boost.
Ma kee wai
(Member of Inventor Association Queensland since 1993)
masealake
What democratic societies should learn lessen from Australia election 2010:
1. What productive action Gillard Labor government 5 billions to UN buys ousted PM Kevin Rudd’s face?
Voter’s pains did not link to high income Politicians and Bureaucracy.
The Australia historical hung parliament demonstrated the big gap of inequality society between the small educated elite groups who get highest pay by talk feast used mouth work controlling live essential resources of the country in every social platforms against the biggest less educated groups who get lowest pay by hands work squeezed by discriminative policies that sucking live blood from individual poor/less wealth off?
Voters’ voices do not hear?
Voters’ pains do not ease?
Voters’ cries do not care?
1. Poverty will not be phase out if no fairer resources to share;
2. Illness will not be reducing if no preventive measurement in real action;
3. Agriculture will not be revitalize if urbanization continuing its path;
4. Housing affordability will not be reach for young generation if government continues cashing from young generation debt by eating out the whole cake of education export revenue without plough back;
5. Manufacture industry will shrink smaller and smaller if no new elements there to power up to survive;
6. Employability will not in the sustainable mode for so long as manufacture and agriculture not going to boost.
Ma kee wai
(Member of Inventor Association Queensland since 1993)
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