[LINK] Turnbull's address to the National Press Club

[Tom Koltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of David Boxall
> Sent: Wednesday, 3 August 2011 8:42 PM
> To: Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> Subject: [LINK] Turnbull's address to the National Press Club
> 
> 
> Transcript with references and link to the Q&A that followed is at: 
> <http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/uncategorized/address-to-th
e-national-press-club-australia/>.

>One comment that struck me:
>"What about New Zealand?  Over the same timeframe but for a net cost of

>only $600 million[4], the Government's Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) 
>initiative will ensure 1.2 million (or 75 per cent) of households will 
>have fibre to the home (FTTH) delivering similar speeds as the 
>Australian counterpart.
>
>The remaining 25% will be covered by the $300 million Rural Broadband 
>Initiative and will receive broadband over the existing and enhanced 
>fibre to the node (FTTN)[5] network (which currently covers 84% of New 
>Zealanders "...
>
>If New Zealand already has a comprehensive FTTN network:
>- How did Australia get so far behind and;
><SNIP>
>
Err, Protectionist measures for T1 T2 sell offs without regard for the
economy.
In other words, Politicians want to get re-elected and are prepared to
destroy the economy to if it stands in between them and re-election.

On the one hand we have politicians that want to spend money to look
good to the electorate <Labor>
On the other hand we have politicians that want to sell assets to look
good to the electorate. <Liberals>.

Neither side actually cares what their policies actually cost the
electorate.

The few excellent politicians that exist on both sides are hampered by
party back-room politics from effecting any meaningful change.

The only truly successful democracy in the world, where the government
respectfully refers to the electorate as sovereign, is Switzerland.

In New Zealand, Politicians were to be held accountable if their
policies turned out to be financial failures.
All that was lacking was a legal system that was not scared of the
Beehive (Legislative Assembly building in Wellington) and we might have
seen true Democracy in action.

In Australia, I'm afraid we might be a wee bit further away from
democracy than our Kiwi cousins and a hell of a lot further away from
Democracy than the Swiss.

Whenever I want to find out why something is so, I do a spreadsheet of
the shareholders/Revenue activities and stakeholders...


The Government doesn't have any shareholders so one must review the next
group of suspicious characters.

Telstra. (If we ignore the public shareholders as irrelevant...)

Revenue from the Publishers. (Publishers that don't want Google to take
their content.)
Revenue from Content owners. (That don't want fast broadband speeds
allowing alternative -Netflix- style operations to commence competitive
operations)
Revenue from oversubscribed undersea cable (until PPC-1 and Endeavour)
Revenue from overpriced ULL's @ $16.60 per naked DSL circuit for copper
that is sometimes 95 years old. (Which just added an additional
$72,192,000.00 annual with the ACMA ULL price increase) to Telstra's
Copper revenues.
Revenue from DSL equipment and circuits long since amortised to zero... 
Revenue from the delivery of Foxtel content via amortised cable
network...

Suddenly we understand why FTTN and/or FTTH was never offered by Telstra
as a consumer product.

They installed it, Australians paid for it, but it was against the
desires of their major trading partners for them to turn it on.

Therefore they didn't.

The Australian people now have to pay $165.00 per year (each) for the
next ten years to pay for the economic convenience of Telstra's trading
partners. 
That is a hidden cost that multi-national corporations often offload
onto citizens without anyone ever realising that somecorp has just
reached into their wallet and taken out a big pile of cash - without
asking permissison. 

Someone should be held accountable for that. 

Mind you, the way ASIC, the ASX and our legal system operates, that
someone will undoubtedly turn out to be me.

TomK