Howard and Coonan are deluded if they have faith in Australia's toothless consumer watchdog to resolve the issue. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is as useless as a one-legged man in an arse kicking competition - these are the same people who seem genuinely surprised every time the price petrol goes up before a long weekend.

Labor's plan will break the Fibre to the Node deadlock, get the infrastructure built and ensure Telstra is never in the position to hold Australia to ransom again. The government's response is to continually accuse Labor of "raiding the Future Fund". Coonan sounded like a broken record during her interview on the ABC TV's Lateline. She used the phrase four times, five if you count "crash through the Future Fund".

What good is a future fund for tomorrow if you're flushing away the country's future today? The Howard government's alternative to Labor's plan is the Australian Broadband Guarantee. It aims to spend $163 million to subsidise internet access for remote Australians, but it doesn't break the Telstra monopoly that got us into this mess in the first place. Nor does the government's separate $600 million Broadband Connect program, which aims to expand broadband coverage to 95 per cent of the population but still maintain the status quo.

Maybe the Future Fund is the wrong place to find the funds, that's one for the economists to debate, but that doesn't mean Labor's plan is a bad idea. Nobody denies Telstra has Australia by the balls. Labor's broadband plan aims to break this grip, while the Howard government's programs aim to keep handing over cash in the hope Telstra doesn't squeeze any tighter.{moscomment}