opinion I had a moment of deja vu while listening to Shadow Communications Minister Tony Smith’s speech at the annual conference of the Australian Telecommunications Users Group last Friday morning.

Four years ago I was sitting at the exact same event, listening to another Shadow Communications Minister speak. I refer, of course, to Stephen Conroy, who has since had the ‘shadow’ removed from his title and now leads Australia’s technology and telecommunications policy portfolio.

At the time, then-Communications Minister Helen Coonan was on top of her game. It would be a year and half until Kevin Rudd would sweep John Howard from power, and Conroy was lost in the quagmire of fruitless opposition to a Government that, it seemed, could get re-elected no matter how many wrongs it committed.

Four years ago, Conroy’s speech did not go down well.

As I chronicled at the time, despite the fact that Conroy spoke directly after Coonan, who had just announced a major new policy to fund a bush broadband network (does this sound familiar?), the Shadow Communications Minister did little to rebut her speech or engage with the relevant issues.

At the time, I thought Conroy’s speech was pretty awful, and that he had little chance of really taking Coonan on in the portfolio.

A key indicator of Conroy’s lack of success that day was that not a single member of the audience wanted to ask him a question about his policies … Coonan, on the other hand, was mobbed.

Let me say this plainly. Smith’s speech last Friday was even worse than the one Conroy delivered four years ago.

In my opinion, although Conroy does not have the solid intellectual grasp of the complexity of the issues in the telecommunications industry that Coonan did during her tenure, he does have drive, energy, ambition, and perhaps most importantly, a solid political will to make change in his portfolio.

Smith (pictured) gave every indication on Friday that he does not appear to have either the drive to change the telecommunications landscape, the will to hold Conroy to account in any serious manner, or sufficient understanding of the issues involved to engage with an audience about them.

Conroy’s shadow spent the majority of his speech informing the audience — composed of technology professionals and industry insiders — about the broad history of the industry.

He went into such mundane details as why he thought the fax machine was “earth-shattering” when it was first launched and how he was one of the first people to buy a brick-sized mobile phone when they first went on sale in the early 1990′s.

Conroy is currently the driving force behind the biggest shake-up of Australia’s telecommunications industry since de-regulation.

He is the architect of the unpopular internet filtering project, and has repeatedly avoided disclosing key documents at the heart of his reform agenda such as the NBN implementation study and the panel of experts’ report into the first, failed $4.7 billion NBN tender.

In short, although most in the telecommunications industry would agree Conroy is driving needed change … our fearless Communications Minister’s record is far from squeaky clean.

Yet Smith did not substantively address any of these areas, instead choosing to focus on opposition to changes to the Do Not Call Register.

This would have been bad enough. But it was the tone of the Shadow Communications Minister’s speech that was really grating. Smith spoke slowly. Very slowly. Slowly enough that you could literally type each word as he was uttering them.

As a journalist I have attended thousands of presentations, speeches and debates, and rarely have I encountered a speaker as stultifyingly boring as Smith.

As a Communications Minister I would rank Conroy about on par with Coonan — he has less deep understanding, but more political power and will. Conroy’s former shadow Nick Minchin is at about the same level, as his ongoing Senate debates with Conroy display to great effect.

However, Smith is two or three ranks down.

For the rest of this year, I predict that Conroy will be able to daily hand Smith the biggest insult that one political operator can give another. In short, he will be able to safely ignore him.

Not for Smith, the saving NBN policy that Conroy pulled out of his hat and rode all the way to take his present ministership after the last election. Not for Smith, the wide-ranging legislative change that will re-shape Australia’s telecommunications industry and split Telstra squarely in half.

Unless Smith gets a new speechwriter, a new image and some political will to tackle his opposite, the Shadow Communications Minister’s next several years will go down as nothing more than a footnote to the rein of King Conroy.

Image credit: Office of Tony Smith

Related posts:

1. Oh dear: Tony Smith doesn’t really ‘get’ Twitter
2. Boyce queries Conroy, Smith on US filter concerns
3. NBN audit: Smith slams “chaotic Conroy”
4. “I’m no Bill Gates,” says Tony Abbott
5. Conroy nemesis Minchin to retire

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1. bently
   Posted 15/03/2010 at 2:18 pm | Permalink | Reply

   In addition, the dude looks like a fool.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 15/03/2010 at 2:38 pm | Permalink | Reply

     I don’t think he is a fool, but he’s certainly not taking the portfolio seriously enough. Opposing Conroy is a high profile job, and he’s not paying enough attention to it yet.

2. Phil Sim
   Posted 16/03/2010 at 11:35 am | Permalink | Reply

   The Liberals have Paul Fletcher sitting there in the back benches, who has written a bloody book on the subject. I realise he’s a newbie, but considering how important this issue is the Liberals could have a highly respected subject-industry expert talking on the matter.

   No-brainer. Get Fletcher in, so we can get some proper debate going on these nation building issues.

   Renai, I’d be very interested to hear what Fletcher’s views are if you can get him to agree to an interview. He declined Kickstart but we didn’t give him much notice. Given his book and being ex-Optus, you’d think his personal views would probably be counter to where the Liberal party’s thinking appears to be right now.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 16/03/2010 at 11:41 am | Permalink | Reply

     Phil! They let you out from behind the paywall ;)

     I think there has been some commentary from Paul recently — and it’s not what you would expect him to say. From memory he was toeing the party line. I’ll see if I can find it.

     • Phil Sim
       Posted 16/03/2010 at 12:10 pm | Permalink | Reply

       I would be more surprised if he didn’t toe the party line, he is a politician and a Liberal one at that, but I’d be interested to hear how he justifies that stance based on his history.

3. Sydney Lawrence
   Posted 25/03/2010 at 8:49 am | Permalink | Reply

   Paul Fletcher was chosen by Alan Jones a few days ago to speak on the Telstra/FTTH affair. It can be seen on the 2GB Website under the heading “Broadband Bungle”. Very interesting, and yes Paul should be Shadow Comms spokesman.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 25/03/2010 at 9:27 am | Permalink | Reply

     Fascinating Sydney, I will check that out. Cheers!

4. Sydney Lawrence
   Posted 25/03/2010 at 9:40 am | Permalink | Reply

   Renai I am sure that with your technical excellence you could have a link to the Alan Jones comments erected here for perusal. Telstra knew how (I didn’t I must admit) and put the link for me on Telstra Exchange. Thanks and best wishes.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 25/03/2010 at 10:56 am | Permalink | Reply

     Hehe I am planning just that Sydney, hold on for a bit, I’ll get to it ;)

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 25/03/2010 at 11:29 am | Permalink | Reply

     hey Sydney, the link is here. Haven’t listened yet, but plan to:

     http://bit.ly/bQYH5O

5. Simon Reidy
   Posted 15/03/2010 at 2:33 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Upon seeing his photo, I honestly thought I was looking at a simple minded American evangelical preacher. The type of guy you see on TV reading irrelevant Bible excerpts at 4:33am.

   I say this a little facetiously, but after reading your article it seems like he is actually perfectly suited to be working in the most out of touch conservative opposition party this country has ever seen. I mean Fax machine was the best he could come up with as a revolutionary change to the telecommunications industry? Wow. I mean WOW.

6. Renai LeMay
   Posted 15/03/2010 at 2:40 pm | Permalink | Reply

   hehe I’m wondering whether your impression could have been influence by #atheistcon over the weekend Simon? ;)

   I think Smith has potential, but he needs to start paying attention and realising this is not a cozy portfolio that he can just do little in. It’s one of the most high-profile portfolios, and one of the toughest.

7. Peter Holland
   Posted 16/03/2010 at 9:44 am | Permalink | Reply

   as i have commented elsewhere, many, many times, there is someone on the backbench that would be a greater advocate for the labor government in the ICT portfolio – Sen. Kate Lundy is probably the first senator i have ever met in person, considering that I don’t go to the “House on the Hill” at all. I met her at a Girl Geek Dinner – and found her attitudes and interest in my opinions to be amazing. She actually listened to me, even took notes…

   If she was representing the Department of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy, what new innovative policies would we see? (By the way, I still firmly believe that the Dept of BCDE was thus named to make it easier to remember)

8. Simon Reidy
   Posted 16/03/2010 at 11:47 am | Permalink | Reply

   Ok, so maybe my perception of Tony Smith was just a tiny bit skewed by the atheist con. However I still maintain that without a new haircut and smile, Mr Smith would currently look more at home shouting Praise Jesus at a Hillsong gathering!

   In all seriousness I hope he gets his act together. Someone needs our backing to take on Conroy and after your article I don’t have much “faith” in Smith being up to the task.

9. Renai LeMay
   Posted 16/03/2010 at 2:45 pm | Permalink | Reply

   I agree Kate Lundy would be an excellent Communications Minister, however I don’t think she is in a political position to win the role at the moment. This is probably one of the great differences between her and Conroy.

10. Renai LeMay
    Posted 16/03/2010 at 3:26 pm | Permalink | Reply

    What could be really interesting is if the Greens take some extra Senate seats in the next election. If they did, they could really become quite a big power. I mean they already are to some extent, but with a few more seats Scott Ludlam — who does seem to understand the issues quite well — could really take on Conroy in a substantial way.

    This, I would like to see. I’m a big believer in checks and balances on power :)