NBN means No Bloody Network in Tassie public schools?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 15 June 2011 14:07

Opinion and Analysis

Although the Labor Party is meant to be one 'of the people', the Tasmanian Labor Government has seemingly made little effort to actually connect its public schools to the people's national bloody network.

When a Labor Government doesn't make sure that public schools are connected to Australia's biggest ever public spending project and national broadband network, you have to ask why it is going against its stated, long-held ideology.

Labor Parties are meant to be for the people and of the people, promoting big government solutions, public schooling and ultimately, public everything, with the 'wealth' spread around as far as possible.

So, it comes as somewhat of a major shock to discover that one particular Labor Government, that of the Australian Island state of Tasmania, has forgotten about its public schools, with apparently only one such school undergoing a trial in a single computer lab, while the rest of the public schools languish on whatever connections they are already on.

Australia's Broadcasting Corporation has reported on Tasmania's Education Minister, Nick McKim, acknowledging that 'one computer lab at the Smithton High School' is doing an NBN trial, but that the rest of the school is using 'the old network'.

The ABC then quoted the Tasmanian Liberal Party's spokesperson, Michael Ferguson, exposing the hypocrisy that is leaving public school children with no bloody NBN network.

Mr Ferguson is specifically quoted saying: 'That no schools are actually hooked up to the NBN, that all government schools in those three trial towns are still just part of the Department's normal network which certainly does not provide the sorts of speeds and bandwidth that the former premier and the current premier have promised.

"Schools should be the first organisation and buildings connected to the NBN if any.

"Because they're the ones who can demonstrate it, they can have large numbers of kids using it, advocating it in their homes later on, but it seems that they will in fact be the last and it's extraordinary that this government has allowed that to happen", concluded Mr Ferguson.

Undoubtedly, the Tasmanian Labor Government will be eventually be shamed into ensuring its public schools do indeed have NBN connectivity, but again, it is a surprise that of all the political parties out there, that the Labor Party isn't the 'somebody' that is 'thinking of the children'.