Election rant 3: Prevailing wisdom

Renai LeMay
Tuesday, 17 August 2010 13:30

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

ZDNet.com.au columnist David Braue has committed to write one technology-related election rant for each business day until the Federal Election on August 21. But elections are above all, a debate between two sides. So Delimiter is going to match his seven rants '” day by day - providing an alternative devil's advocate point of view.

opinion As David Braue notes in the third of his 'seven sins' series of rants on election technology policies, Australia's telecommunications industry has long complained that its problems are legion and insurmountable without radical government intervention.

Problems like the vertical integration of Telstra, the unsustainable cost of providing services to regional Australia, the lack of regulatory certainty being provided by the Government that would facilitate industry investment and even the unbearable cost of dealing with such government regulations as do exist.

This has been the narrative which the industry has dwelt within for many years '” and certainly for the past half-decade that I have been a full-time journalist in the space.

I can't tell you how many press releases I have received over that time from telcos themselves, as well as lobby groups such as the Competitive Carriers' Coalition (or was it T4 '” for 'Tell the Truth, Telstra'?) '” which have called for the Government to resolve these supposed problems.

If I had a dollar for each one, I would no doubt be able to retire by now to a tropical location, from whose sunny shores I would be able to compose my own press releases complaining about not being on NBN Co's list of first release sites.

David, like Communications Minister and his happy team of Laborites, lays these problems at the Coalition's door.