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VIRTUALISATION Coalition clueless on broadband
VIRTUALISATION Coalition clueless on broadband | Coalition clueless on broadband |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Wednesday, 05 November 2008 | |
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He continued in similar vein: "In the run up to the election the government's approach was just vague and simplistic. It ignored reality and they gave very little detail...As someone who has been involved in policy development for 30 years I know when something is based on focus groups." I agree entirely, and have said as much, and more, in these columns on several occasions. Minchin then went on to make it very clear that the Liberal Party had no stomach for structural separation. Noting that "The government is refusing to say one way or the other what is its position on separation," he said: "My view is that it is far too late in the evolution of telecommunications in Australia to still be discussing the break up of Telstra...I do not believe it is at all realistic to threaten a force break up of the company and I do not believe any Government would attempt it." Most likely, but let us not forget that structural separation of new infrastructure is not the same as "breaking up Telstra" - a confusion that Telstra has worked very hard to foster. And let us not forget that the time to break up Telstra would have been before the Coalition Government sold it to private investors - a process which Minchin presided over the final stages of as finance minister. That aside, I would have hoped that Minchin could have had something constructive to say as to how a future Coalition Government would extract Australia from this broadband mess. After all, it is not at all unrealistic to suggest that it may well be called upon to do so. As Minchin took great delight in reminding the audience, on Labor's pre-election promise the first services of its brave new broadband world should have been coming on line in less than eight weeks. With the government now a year old, there is every possibility that this mess could become an issue for the next election. CONTINUED |
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