[LINK] Future short-circuited as hi-tech sector overlooked in rush to spend

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
IMHO, the Howard/Costello government failed to invest in the things that 
really change and enhance a nation - education and modern 
infrastructure. This government seems to be doing the same thing.

Maybe it's not the government, maybe it's the people not demanding it.

The problem is us. My problem is me.
<brd>

Future short-circuited as hi-tech sector overlooked in rush to spend
Michael Sainsbury
February 04, 2009
Australian IT
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25006353-5013641,00.html

THE silence was deafening yesterday on Kevin Rudd's single biggest 
infrastructure promise -- a $4.7 billion taxpayer contribution to a 
national broadband network.
Kevin Rudd

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd unveiled a $42 billion economic war chest 
yesterday
Schools got libraries instead of digital information or extra computers 
and file servers. They got halls instead of information super-highways.

Hospitals, in many ways the sharpest end of broadband beneficiaries -- 
where the ability to quickly swap patient files can save lives -- were 
left in the cold.

Only a handful of the countless billions of dollars in taxpayers' funds 
being splurged on short-term, one-off payments could have provided every 
school and hospital in the country with broadband connections and 
updated computer equipment. This would have provided medium- and 
long-term benefits as well as a short-term boost to construction and 
spending.

Also not getting a look-in was Australia's struggling venture-capital 
sector, essential to the creation of businesses in growth sectors such 
as technology, renewable energy and bio-technology.

This is an area where Australia has been a chronic under-performer, 
being bested for decades by smaller nations in Europe as well as some 
Asian neighbours such as Taiwan and Malaysia.

It is remarkable that after making such a hue and cry over broadband and 
its benefits, high-speed internet and its associated industries have 
been ignored in the biggest stimulus package by an Australian government.

The grandly named national Broadband Network was the Government's single 
biggest election promise after tax cuts.

If more government is the answer, as the Prime Minister now says, then 
why not double the National Broadband Network funding and have the 
federal Government build it. This would remove the problem of handing 
the network to one or other industry player and create the level playing 
field Australia's compromised telecom sector so desperately needs. Down 
the track, perhaps, it could be sold as a regulated utility, paying back 
the taxpayer.

Rudd's stimulus package barely sniffed around a future as a clever, more 
productive nation and laid bare a Government that has paid political lip 
service to technology but has no fundamental understanding of its benefits.

-- 
 
Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au