This article is by Sean Rintel, lecturer in strategic communications at the University of Queensland. It originally appeared on The Conversation.
analysis Australian social media users and civil society groups are mobilising against LNP Communication spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull’s claim today that “democracy has spoken” on the issue of the National Broadband Network (NBN).
On election day last Saturday, Nick Paine, a self-identifying LNP-voting student from The University of Queensland, started a Change.org petition to save the Australian Labor Party’s fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) NBN. FTTP, also known as fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) delivers optic fibre directly to premises.
Social media users have since shared the petition rapidly and widely. The petition had garnered 1,000 signatures by the end of September 7, but in the five days since, that number has surged to more than 216,000 signatures, climbing as fast as one name per 3.5 seconds.
In rejecting the petition in a blog post on his website, Turnbull not only brought on rancour about the perceived superiority of a FTTP NBN over the Liberal National Party’s slower fibre to the node (FTTN) NBN – which uses optic fibre to cabinets placed around neighbourhoods, and existing copper wire from cabinets to buildings – but also appeared to dismiss democratic debate outside of elections. Furore has erupted over Turnbull’s snarky response to Twitter user Phillip Tyson:
While some commentators claim that such mobilisation is of limited value, perhaps even just slacktivism (internet users who support or protest a cause in a way that often requires little to no effort), civil society groups such as Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), of which I am a board member, strongly reject this position.
Journalist Josh Taylor at ZDNet points out that the largest Change.org petition prior to the current one was that asking advertisers to cease associating with 2GB radio station’s shock-jock Alan Jones. Taylor notes that:
Although 2GB temporarily suspended advertising on the station, and some advertisers left, Jones’ show continues, and his audience share remains relatively stable.
Taylor also points out that “joke petitions” to politicians are on the rise, such as calling on the White House to build a Death Star earlier this year (which elicited a response). The implication of both points is that the value of such petitions is diluted, at best, and may be self-diluting given the combination of knee-jerk reactions and irony at which users excel.
But when it comes to internet issues in particular, such petitions and social media action can have profound effects. The best example is the 2012 backdown of both House and Senate backers of the draconian Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the face of a 4.5 million signature petition from Google and the concurrent day of the Internet Blackout. This was the largest and most successful online protest in history, effectively crushing the political will to push though the bills.
As a crude comparison, the 4.5 million signatures on the Google petition (from a global audience) represented about 1.4% of the population of the United States (313.9 million). The 236,361 (as of September 14) signatures on the NBN petition represent 1.04% of Australia’s 22.69 million population. So in terms of proportional raw interest, the Australian NBN petition should be treated by Malcolm Turnbull as extremely significant.
Further, it should be treated as a spur to those engaged in social activism that their cause does, indeed, have momentum. Of course, one difference between SOPA/PIPA and the NBN petition is that SOPA/PIPA had a direct and easily measurable aim: stopping the bills being signed. Australian NBN activists have a much tougher road ahead to push for a FTTP NBN, which has been vigorously opposed all along by the Coalition.
But social activists should not be deterred. The most practical and valuable action that FTTP NBN supporters should propose is for the Liberal National Party to expand the scope of its proposed review to determine the costs and timeframe of the current FTTP NBN. The review’s current process is rather opaque and thus potentially a rubber-stamp exercise for the new government’s FTTN plan:
There will be a strategic review conducted within the next 60 days which will show how long it will take and how much it will cost to complete the NBN on the current specifications and what that means both to the taxpayer and to the consumers.
The new government could begin to mend some of the damage to its brand – and Turnbull’s brand in particular – by increasing the transparency and scope of the review to include civil society groups and extensive community consultation. Clearly groups such as EFA would wish to be involved, but so might other groups and constituencies.
Malcolm Turnbull may believe that democracy has spoken; but now is the time for democracy to shout back. The Storify collection below shows a reasonable sample of the social media activity on this issue. As well as more of the introductory material, the collection shows some of the variation in anti-Turnbull sentiment:
Sean Rintel is a Board Member and Life Member of Electronic Frontiers Australia. This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.
Image credit: Office of Malcolm Turnbull
Turnbull has already responded to this on his blog:
http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/the-importance-of-telling-the-truth-especially-if-you-are-a-lecturer-in-com
I am aware, don’t worry ;)
Cheers for that link.
We need to make sure Malcolm lives by those words, as I expect an honest assessment may not come back with what he expects, in fact Labor also thought FTTN was the way forward until the Expert Panel set them right.
That doesn’t mean Labor had it right either, it just means there is probably something “middle of the road” between both plans that ticks both the “Australia’s future Infrastructure”, along with the “On time” and “Money well spent” boxes…
Signatures on a petition are next to worthless unless the right questions are asked.
I’m not surprised that “do you want FTTP?” got a lot of signatures. “Do you want a Ferrari?” would too. It’s the unasked follow-up – “And are you willing to pay for it?” – which would have shown how sincere the signatures are.
Personally I don’t much care either way about FTTP or FTTN because it’s a phoney discussion. Is it about better productivity? Or better living standards for Australians? Tele-medicine? Downloading porn faster? Or just a cynical vote buying exercise by both major parties? It’s apparently an article of faith that the NBN is the best option for spending $40-odd billion. Is it? So far as I can see, that discussion hasn’t even begun, yet here we are, rushing towards the NBN.
Spending does not equal investment. I realise is semantics but it’s actually a vital distinction. It is not spend $30b or $44b. It’s invest $29.5b or $30.4 of government funds and further investment from private backers.
The “are you willing to pay for” literally means “are you willing to use it when you get it” in this case. If the current plans prices are anything to go by: that’s an empathic yes.
Emphatic ;-)
“It is not spend $30b or $44b. It’s invest $29.5b or $30.4 of government funds and further investment from private backers.”
In order to qualify as an investment, an expenditure must have a reasonable chance of providing a positive return.
The coalition model has little chance of providing a return based on the plan presented.
On that basis, the question becomes “Spend $29.5 billion or invest $30.4 billion”.
The public have spoken however and the choice made. We will throw away $29.5 billion with little hope of seeing any kind of return on the money.
The discussion very much has begun. It was kicked off when a panel of non-government experts reviewed the FttN tenders received by the Rudd government 5 years ago, and came to the conclusion that if you’re going to spend that much money, you’re much better off spending just a little bit more to build FttP.
It’s like someone offering to build you a basic three bedroom house, when for 20% more you can have a fully-furnished 5 bedroom house with double garage, landscaped gardens, and pool.
That was not the sole reason the expert panel gave why FTTP was chosen over FTTN.
You have to look at the economic scenario back then, it was in the middle of the GFC where the panel concluded that funding would be difficult for the private operators to obtain in a joint NBN rollout under a Government/private partnership.
Secondly they stated there was no upgrade path from FTTN to FTTP, which in the light of the FoD model used by BT in the UK and the one proposed by the Coalition is a interesting statement, obviously the upgrade technology and its feasibility has moved on from five years ago.
‘you’re much better off spending just a little bit more to build FttP.’
$44.1b vs $29.5b is not a ‘little bit more’.
No Fibroid, it’s not 29.5bn vs 44.1bn because the 44.1bn includes private debt, which the LNP have admitted will be needed under their plan but haven’t disclosed how much. The only directly comparable costs are Government debt, of which there is only a $1bn difference.
Additionally, it’s interesting that the 71% of premises covered by FTTN relates to a change to just one component of the NBN, which costs $12bn in total, yet MT is claiming $17bn in savings by shifting to FTTN. How can changing a $12bn project from FTTP to FTTN yield a $17bn saving?
I have no idea why the comparison of Labor vs Coalition funding is introduced anymore as a point of discussion, it’s like many cannot accept that the Coalition won the election with a healthy majority and get to govern in their own right, but the costing debate continues on as if Labor are still in there rolling out FTTP to 93% right up to the next election and beyond.
I have stated before we will never know if the Labor funding predictions were correct, or even if they would have met their 2021 completion date, the 2010 Labor NBN policy with its ever changing funding predictions and rollover targets is dead in the water.
Forget all of that, we have new set of targets and funding predictions to look at, but the Coalition NBN Co has to start their rollout first.
The LBN wont start until Malcolm has finished his studies. it will be interesting to see what the experts that do those studies have to say really…
“I have no idea why the comparison of Labor vs Coalition funding is introduced anymore as a point of discussion…”
I agree wholeheartedly… because it’s obvious that a $29.5B government spend for FttN is wastefully stupid, in comparison to FttP which is already being rolled out at a government cost of only $900m more – $30.4B. That’s a no brainer and indeed it’s time for everyone to just admit it and move on.
So let’s agree that FttN is just plain dumb (in comparison) and focus upon the equally dumb $29.5B being wasted on FttN which depends upon Telstra’s obsolete copper, Telstra and Optus’ meant for TV HFC and shake our heads how anyone could possibly promote this hodge-podge, $900m saving as a better alternative…
All together now.
I would be interested to see how much money will be wasted in going from FTTP to FTTN.
There has been a considerable amount of funds already invested in the former, money that will be down the drain in a switch to the latter.
“That was not the sole reason the expert panel gave why FTTP was chosen over FTTN.”
Consideration was also given to breaking the private monopoly over teh fixed line infrastructure.
“You have to look at the economic scenario back then, it was in the middle of the GFC where the panel concluded that funding would be difficult for the private operators to obtain in a joint NBN rollout under a Government/private partnership.”
Surely a Government/private partnership for FTTP would face the same obstacle?
“Secondly they stated there was no upgrade path from FTTN to FTTP, which in the light of the FoD model used by BT in the UK and the one proposed by the Coalition is a interesting statement, obviously the upgrade technology and its feasibility has moved on from five years ago.”
BT’s FoD can provide an absolute maximum FoD data rate of 330Mbps. This is an inherent limitation of the FTTN technology.
There is no way around this other than scrapping the FTTN system and building a true FTTP to replace it.
Nothing has changed since then, which is why BT is now trialling GPON.
“$44.1b vs $29.5b is not a ‘little bit more’.”
Actually, it is. Remember that Mr Turnbull tells us that FTTP is the desired final outcome.
So the proposal is that we save 33% in the short term to deliver 2.5% of teh performance to 70% of the population and, in the end, less than half that $29.5 billion investment will be usable in the final FTTP solution meaning, in today’s dollars, Mr Turnbull’s FTTP will cost another $30 billion on top of teh $30 billion he is planning on spending now.
And that igbores teh cost of getting access to teh copper, fixing the copper, maintaining the copper and maintaining nodes for decades.
Actually your looking at it the wrong way… we’re not paying more for better services. We already we’re paying that set amount on the old plan. What happens now is we’re cutting down to the “cheaper” option because it’s faster and cost effective.
Since we were already committed to the plan it’s more like planning a house for 20k w/ 3 bedrooms and garage, etc. but opting to pay 19k instead for a 1 bedroom flat because it would be built “faster” and “cheaper”
Except you’re building your “faster and cheaper” one bedroom unit, at the same time you’re trying to have a baby with your partner.
But you missed the point!
We won’t need that 3 bedroom yet anyway! And we’ll have a roof to live in sooner! =P
Performance of said roof may vary during rainy conditions ;)
“We won’t need that 3 bedroom yet anyway! And we’ll have a roof to live in sooner! =P”
But we already live in a shack (ADSL) and we know that the apartment will only be finished 1 week before the baby is due anyway and the doctor has told us that we are having triplets (data requirement doubles each year).
“It’s like someone offering to build you a basic three bedroom house, when for 20% more you can have a fully-furnished 5 bedroom house with double garage, landscaped gardens, and pool.”
Its like someone offering to build you a Cruze, when for 20% more you can have a Commodore V8. And most people these days are choosing the Cruze because they just don’t need a big car or a big engine, they just need transport for themselves round the city, and they have more useful things to do with the extra 20%. These days the only people who are paying the extra 20% are people who want to tow a caravan or a boat, and businesses and other organisations that are getting their Commodores subsidised by everyone else through the tax system.
*sigh*
How does that anaolgy work if its independently predicted that 90% of the population will be needing to tow a caravan within the life expectancy of the car?
Family gets a Cruze, knowing they will need to tow a caravan in 8 years. At that point, they need to go buy a Commodore, and get near nothing for the tradein on the Cruze, because its old technology that nobody has a use for.
Actually, most Australians are buying SUV’s, and actually buying the imported ones at record numbers. Which explains why Holden has it’s cap in hand to the government and Ford is folding here.
Not sure how that works in to your analogy though…maybe importing NBN ideas from other countries or something?
Not a bad comparison, Australia was unique in that the Government was totally funding a 93% residential FTTP rollout, we will now have a world like mixed infrastructure rollout, taking advantage of the massive incumbent infrastructure already laid, and not shutting it all down to ensure FTTP justifies itself.
Totally fund, really?
Anyway, yes we will according to estimations (remember those things you love to highlight to argue against legitimacy) have FttN and like other nations our’s like their’s will be inferior to FttP, our’s like their’s will need to be upgraded to FttP in the future (either by a government or residents) and our’s will cost ‘the government’ only $900m less than FttP…
Yes it’s ridiculous, but hey as long as ‘our party’ is doing it, all is kosher, eh?
it also highlight the fact that if you want to do something right in Australia, you have to pay for it yourself. Or put another way, if you want decent tech designed for Australia, taxpayers need to pay for it…
Please explain why it is a bad thing that an FTTP rollout should pay for itself.
Again w/ the point of view of “paying more”..
When someone opts for a “cheaper option” their not looking at the added expenses of the “better product”. Their looking at “what they are saving for the cheaper option”. Your not looking at why the one you replaced was “uselessly expensive”. Your looking at what you saved in comparison to the more expensive option.
So yes in some sense your Cruze vs Commodore comparison *works* because buying Cruze for the lower cost *saves* you money in the long run for the same capacity as a Commodore would have and then have more functionality.
HOWEVER where the comparison falls flat is the fact that if we’re comparing FTTN vs FTTP in functionality you’re not going to get the same capacity/lifetime use out of it. In categories of speed and capacity FTTN is only “better” because our current standard is “crap”. But your not directly comparing the two products there. FTTN is almost “the same price” (20% difference) but it’s capacity is worse (100mbs minimum promise), lifetime is worse (10 years vs 50years) and the only place where it scores points (“faster roll out” of 10 as opposed to 15 years) is negligable. In laymans terms your swapping the option to buy a Cruze for the proverbial used 10yr old Pulsar because you’ll get it faster.. it will get you from A to B as well but it’s not exactly the same “value” for the “savings” your earned either…
Of course what I do find amusing w/ counter-arguments that “we’re spending too much” is the fact that BOTH policies are spending around the same amount – around 30-40billion.
For a savings of around -10-20% your getting something that functionally *works* at 10-20% of the other plan. The savings to spenditure over performance from one model is so disproportionally bad that one has to questio – exactly *what* did you save?
Since people like E”car”nomics style comparisons. It’s like looking at the new 86 model sports Corolla…for 20k… and then opting to buy the 1970’s Corolla for 19k because “it’s cheaper”.
Wow the car analogy is a terrible one. Public transport would have been better. How about an interstate maglev train capable of 800km/hr? For 3% less you could build a diesel train capable of 100km/hr and only 10% of the carriage capacity which will cost 20% more to operate, while allowing a private competitor to build your original maglev train right next to it and steal all your customers, even though you will saddle taxpayers with an unrepayable debt.
@TrevorX: I know it’s a “terrible” analogy… but people seem to like the “E’car’nomics” simplification so much about buying a Ferrari hence I had to do an oversimplified comparison myself –
That is what it comes down to is your not paying for “more” for extras. Your paying less for something worth even less than if you paid what you set out to pay for.
Point is people have to move away from the mindset that “we’re paying more”. We’re paying what the plan says we had to pay. When you opt for a cheaper option you don’t look at it as if you paid more for the other item. You look at a sale/cheaper option as saving some money for practically the same thing…. the sticking point here is “practically the same thing”.
FTTN is *not* practically the same as FTTP. The peak performance of FTTN isn’t even comparable to what FTTP is capable of right now. That’s not to say FTTN doesn’t fix our *immediate* problem (ie. slow internet) but as w/ buying a 70’s pre owned Corolla it probably won’t last long. And any “savings” for being cheaper is negated by the fact your expected output from the “cheaper” alternative doesn’t even come close to the original plan. Point is when you opt for a cheaper option you expect it’s performance to be comparable to what your replacing it for. FTTN works… it just doesn’t work as well nor will it last as long! If something works only at 10% of your original plan you expect to pay only 10% not get a 10% discount =P
“For a savings of around -10-20% your getting something that functionally *works* at 10-20% of the other plan. ”
FTTP delivers 2.5Gbps to every house connected. The option of taking a slower rate is entirely up to the user.
FTTN will deliver a data rate dependent on distance from the node. The only “guarantee” is that it wont be worse than 25mbps. FoD MAY be able to deliver UP TO 330Mbps at significant expense, but that is entirely dependent on whether or not it is practicable.
I would argue that FTTN “works” at 1% of the otehr plan.
@Goresh: Agreed.. but for the sake of argument I’m being “optimistic” about the intended 100mbs minimum “promise” here vs 1Gbps which we know FTTP is already capable of. It’s easy to make something look like a “worse option” if your pointing out lowest possible capacity/worst scenario.
It’s totally different to argument against if your already using the optimum settings and it *still* looks like a bad trade-off =P
as it happens, i AM paying for it. with my monthly service costs(50/20). and if you haven’t seen any ‘discussion’ on the best way of investing, not spending! 30bn – again the governmental portion of the equity investment, not using tax incomes – you haven’t been listening. for at least the past 3 years.
other than that im not seeing the problem?
Is that noise wild e coyote falling from a cliff or is that Turnbull’s credit I hear?
Malcolm’s credibility was lost a long time ago, all that’s left now is the course he’s set, straight into shitsville onboard the S.S. FTTN.
I see an iceberg ahead. It’s name is Telstra.
In what way was Turnbull’s ‘credibility lost a long time ago’?, NBN policy credibility is not simplistically defined by if it’s not Labor NBN policy it is therefore not credible.
Labor and their policy lacked credibility a long time ago when they decided themselves as a pre election tactic not to push it to hard and rely on mainly made up rubbish and negativity about Coalition NBN policy to help push a win for them.
It obviously didn’t work.
Well I guess you could start it from Utegate…
I could forgive him for Utegate (that kind of stuff is just standard political fare).
Where he lost me was in the same week as giving the “Republican virtues: Truth, leadership and responsibility” speech, he decided to attack Mike Quigley and ignore pretty well every single one of those virtues….
So let me ask you, do you think the Labor negative anti-Coalition policy concentrating on a very minor aspect of that policy Coalition FoD in the vain hope that scaring punters they would have to reach into their wallets to come up with $5k to ‘get off copper’ to get them to vote Labor was smart or not?
So you agree having to pay $5K (up to)… FoD is a negative of the FttN proposal? Yes me too…
This is great… on top of you wanting to move on from the government spends comparison (because $29.5B/only $900m less for FttN is ridiculously wasteful) we are now really making progress.
Keep up the good work.
“Labor”, “Coalition”, “Coalition” “Labor”
I get that that’s where your “coming from” Fibroid, the NBN was only ever about politics for you, but some of us are IT workers that can actually see the benefits of a real, reliable and ubiquitous broadband network in Australia, not just in jobs and productivity, but also allowing local businesses to be competitive at a world level without needing a mortgage to pay for a decent link.
+1
No one cares which party does what. What 99% of most IT people want is a fix to the endemic problem to IT that was a neglected infrastructure w/ a “market” that’s content to basically let it all stagnate because it’s more profitable in the short term than to take a punt at investment. When a party introduces a very good policy that voters from both political divides are agreeing it’s good Your alternative had better be a damn *BETTER* choice
Cheaper/Faster does not necessarily mean *BETTER* especially in regards to value.
Oh please…
Why ask for a change and expect a change only after you choose who you voted? If majority of Australian care about FTTH/FTTP, then they should have gone with Labour.
It does not concern me because I already have a FTTH NBN. I’m not a Liberal nor Labor supporter either. I choose the party based on the policies that suit me best.
Making a noise now it’s a bit too late when the Turnbull has no intention to change at all. But don’t give up and keep trying ad hopefully democracy will prevail.
I believe this is one thing we learnt from the election so make the right choice in the next election.
I must have missed something I didn’t realize the last election was “only” about the NBN.
Labor also attracted more of the primary vote than the LNP, but let’s not let facts get in the way of political convenient oversimplification. Most people didn’t vote on the basis of the NBN outcome because most people don’t know or understand enough about the subject.
Perhaps not quite right: http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/party-totals/
You have to add in Nationals (non-QLD) + LNP (QLD) to get the total coalition total. It was the worse ALP primary in many decades. ~45% to ~35%. Not even close.
Sorry, I meant Liberal, not LNP. My typing mistake. The Liberal and National parties chose a very sensible solution creating their Coalition.
So, the NBN was the only issue the election should have been decided on?
Do the coalition REALLY want to bet, that their NBN policy (of all things) was what won them the election? Or are they prepared to admit that it was the bitter pill many voters were happy to risk, in order to get rid of a government they disliked (It’s not like Mr Abbott’s approval rating is what won him the election, is it?). They are going to alienate a lot of people, and if they aren’t careful with their review, they are going to be losing public support less than 60 days after taking office :/
I never said I looked at 1 policy. Like I said NBN does not affect me.
What I said was, make your choice and live with it, which is really what Turnbull said in his reply about the petition.
So winning one election means Australia is now a totalitarian country for the next three years and Australian’s should just like everything the LNP does?
I’m sorry, I didn’t do it with Labor, and I’m not doing it with the LNP…
Just because you wanted Labor’s NBN and it didn’t work out that way at a fair election the result of which there is no dispute as to which political party was preferred by the national electorate to form Government doesn’t therefore make Australia a totalitarian country until a Labor like FTTP rollout starts again.
“Just because you wanted Labor’s NBN and it didn’t work out that way at a fair election the result of which there is no dispute as to which political party was preferred by the national electorate to form Government…”
Unlike some who will argue facts (or ignore them) I agree. There isn’t any dispute whatsoever the Coalition won, and won rather handsomely. In fact my blue ribbon electoral Liberal seat was over before it began.
“…doesn’t therefore make Australia a totalitarian country…”
No it doesn’t. But petitions and/or peaceful protests are part of any actual democracy and if MT believes he is above such petitions and ergo democracy, then we are bordering on totalitarianism…
And all this in just a week and a half!
Just because you wanted Labor’s NBN
Personally, I don’t care if it’s “Labor” or “Liberal”, I just want decent broadband in Australia accessible from pretty well anywhere in the country, it’s just that “Labor” actually had a plan to achieve that, while the “Liberal” plan still comes across as a bit of a crapshoot.
Malcolm still has a lot of work ahead of him to show his network will be as reliable and ubiquitous using FTTN as an FTTP network would be.
@tinman_au
” it’s just that “Labor” actually had a plan to achieve that, while the “Liberal” plan still comes across as a bit of a crapshoot.’
Yes Labor had a ‘plan’ and we will never know if it would have worked or not, but what we do know before they lost Government is what their ‘plan to achieve’ was.
The rollout was behind their plan predicted rollout figures by substantial margins and had to be amended downward twice, the ARPU was revised downward and the costing and required funding had to be increased from the original 2010 plan, and you describe the Coalition plan that has not even started yet the ‘crapshoot’?
Please give me a break, the Coalition have a long way to go to match the so called ‘Labor achievements’, and they have six years to get it right if they need it.
Labor had two continuous terms of Government and were still trying to get their NBN rollout right, up until the 2013 election!
Not a totalitarion. It’s the policy they believe in so don’t expect them to change. You voted based on what you believed.
The fact that Turnbull had said he’s not going to change Liberal NBN policy then the voters should except it just the way the other voters accept Liberal had won the election and NOT labour.
The point is, nothing wrong with trying to make a change but expect that nothing will be changed because the voice had elected the government that believed in a FTTN policy.
So in other words we should do exactly what we have been doing since the election? Campaigning to have the policy changed despite the fact the miniter is overly hostile towards us and will be extremely difficult, and probably impossible, to convinece otherwise?
We’re not all going to go home and say “Well, LNP won, we tried”, so why are you (indirectly) suggesting that we do? Remember the Internet Filter debate after the last election? Conroy was saying that he was going to pass it, and, after many “reviews” and, petitions, etc, he conceded, and the policy is all but dead.
Internet filtering is different. It’s not involving 26+ millions. It is a clear cut that Turnbull wants to reduce cost as they promise the Liberal voters. Changing that will affect his trustworthyness of the majority of the Liveral voters.
I never said don’t do anything! Give it a try but don’t expect a miracle in this case. Unless the government is changed again which is impossible.
What if Malcolm worked his magic and cut costs on the current FTTP NBN to the point he could say “Well, this actually won’t cost that much, we can probably run with it at these numbers”.
Where would you stand on it then?
I’ll say good on him and good for everyone else. Only time will tell. Only Turnbull can change this.
The petition will make a noise, the question can it become a voice that change Liberal policy?
You are also forgetting, delay in FTTH NBN was one of the issue and the reason apart from the cost is FTTN is faster to implement. Unless the voters are still happy with the delay, then the voice has spoken.
Slight correction – the PERCEIVED delays in FttH. The Turnbull knows as well as anyone that the delays were relatively minor given the scale of the project. But that wasnt the message he wanted to send to the electorate, so sensationalised it to the point it became an issue.
Its like saying the Liberal policy has proven to be a flop because since taking power they’ve rolled out zero FttN connections. By itself, it sends a message that completely misrepresents the facts.
Its not a hard argument to show that FttH only need to catch up around 35 houses a day (around a 100,000 shortfall over roughly 3000 days) to make up for the current shortfall, and at the peak of 6,000 a day thats not a big number.
Point being that they arent actually THAT far behind and The Turnbull knows it.
Yes GongGav but many people buy that. So in general, it was one of the key factor swaying voters to believe it will be faster to implement FTTN when compared to FTTH/FTTP.
So will delays in Malcolm’s negotiations with Telstra be the fault of Telstra, or NBNCo? That’s where the lions share of the delay to the NBN came from.
Labour has negotiated with Telstra and hence the path was already setup. Changing the path will off course have it’s share of delay.
Whose fault? Australia has chosen their leader with FTTN policy, voters expect new government to change its mind about NBN.
The voters fault?
The point is NBN with Liberal is going to take as long as NBN with Labour. The ball was already rolling with Labour NBN and now they have to stop and reorganised with Liberal NBN, which off course takes time again.
It’s an unpopular policy opposed by a very vocal and technically minded portion of the electorate. From my point of view these protests are more similar than different.
It’s minor policy not a major project.
I don’t understand why you insist on arguing here. That was an opinion.
In fact, if you agree that we shouldn’t diminish our principles, I don’t understand why you’re posting here. Are you attempting to demoralise us? Because it isn’t working.
We’re not all going to go home and say “Well, LNP won, we tried”, so why are you (indirectly) suggesting that we do?
Because for them it’s a political/ideology debate, it’s not about actual internet access in Australia, it’s about “teams”…
Even Labor’s policy had flaws (which I’ve pointed out here before). That doesn’t mean the whole policy was crap, same as Malcolm’s plan has some good points. If they can combine them (along the lines that Michael Berry pointed out in the article he wrote on Delimiter), we’d end up with mostly the best of both plans…
expect that nothing will be changed because the voice had elected the government that believed in a FTTN policy.
So your point is that Malcolm’s “honesty and transparency” is a sham? Interesting…
Not a totalitarion.
Of course it is, the attitude they are displaying is pretty well the definition of it: “Characterized by a government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralised control”
Ah…you meant the government. Ok it’s totalitarion is the right word.
@tinman_au
So you expected the Coalition to change their mind on NBN policy because of a casual internet poll a little over a week after winning Government with a healthy majority based on amongst many policies their well publicised NBN policy released in April and picked apart and compared with the Labor policy in the tech and mainstream media nearly every week since then?
Really?
Yes.
I had a look at that ‘democratic’ poll’, where was the option to choose ‘I prefer the Coalition policy with a mix of infrastructure rollout’?
You either invited yourself to support the FTTP or you didn’t bother, because there was no other response required.
I don’t even know that follows from my post at all.
Especially considering that my post was purely the illustrate the stupidity of your original query.
What poll are you talking about?
So you expected the Coalition to change their mind on NBN policy because of a casual internet poll a little over a week after winning Government
I expect them to be flexible and to listen to the public, like Labor was with many of their policies, especially on a plan that isn’t even one of their top 6 priorities…
http://www.electionleaflets.org.au/full.php?q=1560#l3215
Of course they won’t change their mind…
Way back at the NBN’s infancy stages and whilst screaming CBA, CBA… MT also said in his own words that even if a CBA was done and the FttP NBN passed, they still wouldn’t agree with it.
Did I hear someone say hypocrisy?
What is going to happen is 3 years time when the boat haven’t magically stopped, the budget is still in deficit(after they said all debt is bad), personal tax level rise, very little action has been taken on climate change, and to top it all off the NBN is delayed another couple of years while the LNP conducts “reviews” and restructure the roll out.
When your entire campaign is based around 1 liners and 5 sec catch phases your success need to be summed up by the same. You can’t go to the election and we “We have stopped the boats …. except for those two over there for reason XYZ”, “We have delivered 25mb/s to everyone …. except for people in old apartment blocks with pair gain systems”. I can see the LNP delivering the NBN in time just not with the arrogance of MT and scorch earth approach they seem to want to take.
The way forward to ensure rapid success in the space is to keep pushing the roll out and make improvements, you’re not committed to Fiber everywhere and this opens up room for improvements some have already flagged by NBN co and other experts in the field. If you kept ignoring the experts calling “lairs” and “a disgrace” you are only inviting yes men. As the joke goes do you only want to hear your opinion in a deeper voice, it is the problem Labor faced once they went to roll out not being able to admit to any areas for improvement in the plan for the fear saying we were wrong in this area.
Democracy, from the Greek dēmokratía, “rule of the people”.
The only true democracy then is a direct vote of the people on an issue, ie a referendum.
In recognition of the fact that it is clearly unworkable to have each and every decision voted on by the people, we developed a parliamentary system whereby candidates are elected to represent the people ad make decisions on behalf of the people.
The idea is that individuals are elected based on the policies they would put in place if elected.
This diluted form of democracy has been further weakened by the party system whereby our local candidates present, not their own policies, but those of the party they are members of (and who pay most of the costs of running a campaign). This has the effect of shrinking further the voters options.
In recognition of this, the Westminster system, as used by Australia for one, has long catered for teh submission of petitions to parliament and the head of state in order to present the case for those policies that the public consider important but which may not have been sufficient to “tip the balance” on a party selection. Of course, the parliament is not bound to comply with the wishes expressed in a petition, they are after all only a sample of the population, but they ARE bound to CONSIDER such petitions.
Turnbull, in rejecting such a petition out of hand is in fact the party failing to respect “rule of the people” and rejecting democracy, rather than the people gathering signatures.
I read this:
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/welcome-to-the-abbottoir-20130915-2tsrm.html
and thought fondly of you guys :-)
I thought of this: http://abafflingordeal.com/2012/10/11/an-apology-to-paul-sheehan/
This psychiatric diagnosis of the “Father of Labor’s grandiose FTTH NBN scheme” is hardly a surprise… :)))
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/grandiose-narcissist-the-secret-diagnosis-that-helped-bring-down-kevin-rudd-20130909-2tfum.html
Do you actually have anything tech orientated to add?
Because the election is over, you can stop the campaigning.
Rudd stepping down as leader obviously proves the premise false, if he really did have ‘grandiose narcissism’ (otherwise known as ‘Grandiosity’…look it up…) they would have had to have sacked him from the position…
As far as the Coalition is concerned, the only valid form of political choice, is the ballot box.
Since the ballot box has handed them power in Parliament, they will not be interested in further political choice being exercised. This includes any petition or attempt to subvert policy.
The only thing that might cause a collapse of policy now, is if Turnbull continues to have public meltdowns and is either censured or replaced by Abbott and his Cabinet.
And at the rate he is going, there won’t be many bridges left soon. Never underestimate the opportunity for governments to implode. We have recent history and the now added pressure and media scrutiny that will fall on the Coalition, will quite quickly open old wounds.
In short, Turnbull isn’t listening. He doesn’t have to.
All that’s left is to see what the (considerable) public and media pressure on the newly formed Coalition government will do. It’s been 6+ years since they’ve faced any sort of pressure like this; they’re going to have a rough time. And by extension so shall we.
Give it up leftards. The Libs won and you’re getting FTTN. Get used to it.
If you say that enough does it make FTTN a good investment?
@ Coconutdog…
“Give it up leftards. The Libs won and you’re getting FTTN. Get used to it.”
You just most succinctly condensed the motive behind every anti-NBN comment ever made, IMO.
Nice work, thank you.
I’m not getting FttN, I’m getting FttH. Get used to it.
@GongGav: Correction!
“I’m getting FTTH and I will be laughing in 3-4 years time when people are complaining the same problem is still here at all the other poor saps who got stuck w/ FTTN and HFC because it was ‘competitive'”
:D
Actually, if your going to be “stuck” on something, HFC ain’t that bad really, I’ll still be getting 75Mbps faster than FTTN ;o)
Coco….how apt ;o)
What a load of crap, how many adds did TA or MT have on FTTN? Was it their only platform. No It was all stop the boats,carbon tax ,mining tax, and the to return to surplus with TA’s our guarantee.
With Rupert’s kick them out in the media was FTNN mentioned by name ….at all
As for MT’s meaningful debate, we all know how he treated any anyone who made any ground against his cheaper is better was a nbn zealot,
Can all the liberal voters state they voted Liberal purely for the FTTN noNBN plan or just voted against labour out because they hated the Red head or wanted Rudd out.
What a load of crap, how many adds did TA or MT have on FTTN?
It wasn’t even mentioned in their “six key priorities”…
http://www.electionleaflets.org.au/leaflets/1560/
Coalition NBN policy was mentioned in the Labor ad’s a lot though, they couldn’t stop talking about FoD, they were infatuated with it, it was a Labor ‘key priority’.
Why do you consistently try to contrast the two parties?
I don’t get it. Do you seriously think that highlight Labor’s flaws somehow invalidates the flaws we have pointed out of the LNP? Do you seriously think that “leveling the playing field” is a rational debating tactic?
I suspect Fibroid is not a technical person, so he has to fall back on ‘politics’ as the basis of his arguments. Unfortunately, political reasons usually give us second rate outcomes, which is why we’ll get the “FTTN we had to have”…
Infatuated…LOL. Perhaps not quite the word you wanted.
To better describe infatuated… I’d suggest a poster or two here are ‘infatuated’ by Tony and Mal and repeat them verbatim, as a consequence..
That’s a better fit.
Coalition NBN policy was mentioned in the Labor ad’s a lot though, they couldn’t stop talking about FoD, they were infatuated with it, it was a Labor ‘key priority’.
And that is relevant to what I said in what way?
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