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Australia’s Political Downfall
So, Australia woke up confused and unhappy this morning, after a soul-destroying election resulting in no clear leadership, no future Prime Minister and the largest number of informal votes ever. Even more bizarrely, the clearest commentary on events so far, comes from everyone’s most mashed up dictator:
(If you’re unfamiliar with the genre, there are quite a few parodies of Hitler commentating on various events, using footage from the Downfall film.)
*sigh*
On the folly and farce of the Coalition’s broadband policy in Australia
As part of their election campaigning, the Coalition yesterday released their $6billion broadband plan for the next eight years. To say the very least, it’s a bad policy, filled with either technical errors or misrepresentations, and does nothing to situate Australia as a major player in a digital economy. Earlier today I spoke with Travis Collins on RTR FM’s Morning Magazine about the Coalition policy.
It’s fair to say that the coalition’s approach to broadband is one of contempt and ignorance; you only need to watch our potential Prime Minister, Tony Abbott struggle to give any meaningful answers about the policy on last night’s 7.30 Report to see this is an area in which no significant thought or time has been invested. The ad hoc patchwork policy proposed simply milks a tiny bit more out of existing cables and infrastructure, with no long-term planning, no long-term development and a completely unrealistic assumption that private industry will want to invest in national fibre-optic infrastructure. As Mark Pesce clearly argues, there are speeds that can only be achieved, maintained (and, if needs be, expanded) using fibre; wireless and existing copper cables just can’t stretch much further, but the massive investment needed here is surely a national government priority. We don’t expect private enterprise to fund the national roads; the government invests in these because it allows traffic to move across the country. I would argue that the best way to understand our broadband needs are the same: get a high-speed network in place, and the investment, innovation and development will come. Without it, innovation will stall and Australia’s position in the digital economy will be one of weakness and embarrassment.
Industry responses to the Coalition’s plan have been unanimously negative, with the only kind comments being for the one element that replicates a section already in Labor’s National Broadband Network plan. Indeed, David Braue’s recap on ZDNet of the Coalition’s last 24 hours of broadband discussion makes it crystal clear that they have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to broadband, the internet, or most other things to do with telecommunications in Australia. What is clear is that the Coalition’s plan would ensure Australia has one of the slowest internet capacities of any Western (and many other) countries today and for many years to come. Sure, their plan is cheaper, but not buying things that you actually need is never a good policy.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I still think the time and energy Senator Conroy has wasted on an ineffective and unwelcome national internet filter is incredibly disappointing, but Conroy has already back-pedalled substantially, deferring the filter until a review of the Refused Classification ratings system in Australia. (And, implicitly, setting up this, or the likely senate balance of power going to the Green’s, as a way of saying he did his best on this promise, but was blocked by others.) In the meantime, the NBN is the best thing Conroy has worked on, and the current Labor NBN plan is a million times better for Australia, ensuring speeds that allow Australians to participate in the best, brightest and fastest developments online, rather than living in the slow, crawling digital backwater which could see Australia at the mercy of a new new tyranny of distance, lagging behind in the international digital economy.
Wendy NOT 4 Senate
So, in an electioneering Australia political landscape most notable for not being notable, it’s the bigots and racists that seem to stand out, and that seems to be the home territory for Family First senatorial wannabe Wendy Franics who, yesterday on Twitter suggested allowing gay couples to be parents was tantamount to child abuse. The rapid, wide-spread dismay and denouncement of her tweets seems to have shaken Francis, who deleted her tweets, only to discover that people take screenshots of stupid stuff other people say online. Indeed, responses to Francis’ bigotry have become a hot-topic on the #ausvotes hashtag, proving that in an election it’s certainly not true that all publicity is good publicity! In a follow-up interview, Francis has been unable to justify deleting her offensive tweets, but has rather gone on to dig an even deeper hole for herself. Meanwhile, the inevitable parody Fake Wendy Francis tweet account – Wendy2TheSenate – is already making the most of Family First’s predicament (it’s a lot more fun to read than her real Twitter account). It’s also interesting to note how effectively Twitter Lists can be used to protest about someone’s bigotry (screen capture; oh, and that picture/link contains some naughty words!).
As this graph shows, within the #ausvotes tweets on Twitter,Francis’ gaffe certainly got attention, more attention even than her party en masse, but that’s not the attention most politicians are after on the way to an election:
[Graph generated by Pollz.]
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