Australia is likely to get a hung parliament - what now for Tech?

David Heath
Saturday, 21 August 2010 23:54

Opinion and Analysis

On early results, it seems that the new Australian Federal Parliament will have around 72 or 73 seats for each of the two major parties and the remaining 5 seats spread across independents and The Greens.  Where does this leave tech in Australia?

Prior to today's election, it was relatively easy to split the major themes of IT&T amongst the parties and determine that each had a different voice.

The ALP supported a full-featured National Broadband Network.  They also supported a filter to block (let's call it) inappropriate content on the internet.  From their official web site: "The NBN will deliver affordable, high speed broadband services to all Australians, no matter where they live or work. The National Broadband Network will extend optical fibre to 93 per cent of premises, with speeds of 100 megabits per second - 100 times faster than many people experience today."

Amusingly, the only reference to the Internet Filter to be found on the ALP web site was in comments to the various articles published there.

The Liberal Party only recently announced that they would reject the filter, they also indicated that they would not support a full NBN.  Instead, they offered what might be called NBN-lite.  According to their web site "The Coalition's plan will deliver a uniform national broadband network, under which 97 percent of premises are able to be served by high speed networks capable of delivering from 100 Mbps down to a minimum of 12 Mbps peak speed, using a combination of technologies including HFC, DSL and fixed wireless."

The Greens are treading between the two.  Despite no specific statements on their policy documents, I understand that they have announced support for the NBN and are vehemently opposed to any Internet Filter.

So, where does the expected electoral result leave us?