Conroy on the run instead of the hustings

David Swan
Wednesday, 28 July 2010 11:14

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Senator Stephen Conroy has failed to answer the tough questions at a Melbourne event yesterday. In an election month, voters could be forgiven for thinking that the Broadband Minister was not up to another tough session about his filtering and NBN policies.

Conroy was at a Fed Square launch for captioned telephony, a new phone system designed for the hearing impaired.

After briefly highlighting the benefits of the technology, Conroy glowed over how well the NBN is doing, and that its first customers are now live and operational.

He remained seated and present for the duration of the presentation, but when it came to question time at the conclusion, Conroy had to suddenly leave.

The audience was made up of journalists and the hearing impaired, and would have surely given Conroy, the Minister for Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy, a run for his money. But it wasn't to be.

Captioned telephony means deaf of hearing impaired people can talk on the telephone as anyone else would, with the difference being a third party operator listens in on the conversation and types it up for the hearing impaired person to read.

The system itself seems very beneficial to the hearing impaired, despite privacy issues that would arrive from an operator listening in.

Conroy's performance was less convincing.