Goddamnit, just make Malcolm Turnbull Comms Minister already

Renai LeMay
Thursday, 05 August 2010 15:45

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

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opinion For Australia’s technology sector, watching the Federal Election so far has been akin to watching paint dry … on an outback dunny belonging to a rural cottage in Cobar. The day after the Boxing Day test finishes. In the midst of a national beer shortage.

Yup. It has been that boring.

This is an election in which incumbent Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has declared that his party’s technology policy will be “more of the same” and his opponent, Liberal MP Tony Smith, has distinguished himself by refusing to release any policy whatsoever, although we have been continually assured that he is working on one.

It is an election in which the Opposition has barely mentioned the National Broadband Network in more than an off-hand manner — despite the fact that it is a massive policy which is slated to re-shape Australia’s telecommunications sector and cost the public tens of billions of dollars along the way.

It is an election in which Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s own big broadband announcement amounted to little more than the release of NBN coverage maps containing very little detail — maps which have probably been in existence for six months or more.

It is an election in which the Opposition simply accepted Labor’s decision to take its mandatory filter policy off the agenda until next year, abdicating an amazing and freely given opportunity to continually sting Labor with the controversial policy throughout the election.

It is an election which has so bored the ranks of Australian technology journalists and commentators that we have been reduced to publishing articles about the Opposition’s lack of any technology policy and the lack of any debate on technology issues whatsoever.