yARN: Hung Parliament – what it means for tech and broadband
- 22 August, 2010 10:34
- Comments 8
The results are in and neither side has emerged as a clear winner. With two such different broadband policies at play from both parties, what will a hung parliament do to our technology and the IT industry?
The first and most obvious result is that the Independents, Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, may act as a bloc to push for much more investment in rural and regional areas. These former National party members are conservatives with good records in pushing for their own seats.
But an issue on the forefront of their mind is broadband and telecommunications, with Telstra separation set to be in their sights. Even on election night the members made sure to mention broadband as a key issue.
This means concessions for extra rural investment in broadband will flow forth from both parties. It could come from the existing budget at the expense of urban and metropolitan Internet infrastructure, or new money may spring forth to give the independents extra speed in their seats.
As it stands, the Coalition is likely to win 73 seats and could well form a Government with the support of the three rural independents. If Labor wants to take power it looks likely the rural independents will also be involved.
Two other members of parliament have joined the fray and many say they’re wildcards. But Andrew Wilkie is a former intelligence analyst that got pilloried by the Coalition for speaking publicly against the Iraq War. He’s got a strong chance of backing a Labor Government in exchange for a lot more infrastructure in his electorate.
The new Greens member, Adam Bandt, beat the Labor contender and succeeded former Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, who stepped down. He has come out previously to say he’d side with the Government in case of a hung parliament and repeated this point after winning – even if Abbott can form Government with his help, he won’t join in.
The Federal Greens have come out in favour of the National Broadband Network and against the Coalition’s plan, and Bandt is likely to follow suit in the lower house. But regardless of what happens, the Greens are likely to use its balance of power in the Senate to make sure both parties change broadband to suit them better.
One of the biggest losers in all this will be Telstra, with structural separation more likely under any Government with independent members. At the very least, severe access reform will take place at the telco’s expense.
Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.
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Comments
petey
why would rural members be against the nbn? its replacing obsolete infrastructure starting with the most in need (regional).
Paul K
The NBN is far nore important for any rural areas then the city. I hope that the independents and greens keep their eyes on the only significant policy this decade.
Who wa
Telstra shouldn't have been chosen to begin with. The seperation of Telstra from any NBN is important.
This will thankfully force the government to look seriously at rural areas access.
People are forgetting that the Libs DO have a plan for NBN. The difference is that they don't believe that Fibre to the home is nececerilly the way to do it necessarily, i agree with them. You have to remember that the rural areas weren't going to receive fibre any way.
The overseas peer links need subsiding and more of them built before speed to the home is upgraded. That is the only reason why we have bandwidth caps, unlike any other developed country which have unlimited bandwidth. What good is 100Gbit to your home if you are only allowed to download 150GB per month??? 70% of all internet traffic goes overseas ...
Telstra running the NBN will actually have a negative effect on net neutrality as well, they will be able to bundle services that they sell to their subscribers at a much lower rate because they are both the wholesaler and the retailer. Try running "netflix" on your 150GB plan whilst if you sign up for the Telstra+Movies plan and your movie traffic doesn't get metered.
pete p
@Who wa
Subsidising international links ... are you serious?!? These are some of the most profitable parts of our telco industry and as we saw last week, another trans-pacific cable project was announced.
With regards to your comment about fibre not going to the rural areas, that is not correct. Small towns will in fact get fibre under the NBN plan, but under the cobbled together cynical "plan" that the coalition put forward it is likely that these towns will get poor quality wireless or they might eventually get an opportunity to pay a small fortune to Big-T each month for a poor quality DSL connection. In both scenarios of the coalition ... they'll have to wait a long time for it to happen. At least with the NBN there is a clear rollout time-frame.
Graham
Pete P that's not stated with 100% accuracy. Better to say medium sized rural towns will get fibre while the smaller towns will get wireless and those smaller still will get satellite.
My town of 250 (plus 500 in surrounding region) is marked as satellite only on the new maps released.
The benchmark publically stated was towns with 1000 head of population or more would get fibre. Then the 90% coverage went to 93% so a few other towns got in the mix.
Blake
Yes, the rural will get fibre, just not all of them. Do you really think that Australia is 97% metro? Get real.
The liberal plan is a joke.
Wireless for main connectivity is a joke - wireless SUPPLEMENTS an already existing wired connection. Its main use for mobility and flexibility, but it doesn't have anywhere near the performance and reliability of a wired connection.
They also plan on using existing technologies such as DSL and HFC. We all know the problems with these technologies.
One is a shared medium controlled by only two ISPs (which if wholesaled would have the same problems we are currently having), the other has a sliding scale where only people close to the telephone exchange can have a decent connection (which also has the problem of being controlled by one ISP).
So really, do you think this is good enough for Australia?
I don't think so. We deserve better, we can afford better.
Who wa
"These are some of the most profitable parts of our telco industry and as we saw last week, another trans-pacific cable project was announced."
I mentioned nothing about profitability. I don't know where that came from. Profitability doesn't equate to ease/cost of access.
Also the delivery of the system is one of the major criticisms, what do you think about the proposed Labor plans being achievable?
Rauland
Can't they just split Telstra up already?
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