Tony Smith must be a little miffed that shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey took it on himself to announce Coalition policy on the internet filter.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey says the Coalition would dump the Government's controversial mandatory internet filter plan and instead revert to the Howard Government policy of making free end-user filters available to parents.

The technology sector's peak industry lobby has slammed the Gillard Government decision to raid $450 million in funding that had been quarantined for use in innovative new ICT projects.

Investment in the National Broadband Network was the "clear point of distinction" between the Gillard Government and the opposition, and was the investment that would underpin nation building projects from energy to transport to the environment, Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese says.

We are at the half way point in the federal election campaign and the technology sector has barely rated a mention. And I have a theory about that.

The long-running copyright case between ISP iiNet and the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) looks to have come full circle, with one Federal Court judge musing out loud that there is a commercial solution to the issue, regardless of what is decided by the bench.

As election nervousness creeps into the telecommunications sector, the industry's peak lobby has called for all parties to commit to fundamental regulatory reforms to improve market competition and consumer outcomes.

All the momentum in this so far tedious federal election campaign has been Tony Abbott's, delivering opinion polls suggesting for the first time that he is a real chance of becoming Australia's next Prime Minister - and that the Coalition can make good its promise to scrap the national broadband network.

There was a very good reason, in case anyone missed it, why the Prime Minister unveiled the National Broadband Network fibre footprint in the West Australian seat of Hasluck, rather than in a population centre.

The Gillard Government will take the advice of its KPMG-McKinsey implementation study and roll-out optical fibre in its national broadband network to 93 per cent of Australians - instead of the 90 per cent originally planned.