As confirmed by Tony Windsor this afternoon, national broadband – and in particular the NBN – was one of the key reasons behind his support of the Labor government.
During his conference where Windsor pledged his allegiance, the MP for New England said:
“There’s an enormous opportunity for regional Australians to engage with the infrastructure of this century and … I thought (that) was too good an opportunity to miss.
“My advisers in relation to broadband technology – of which I have many – suggest you do it once, do it right and you do it with fibre.”
Abz
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 4:48 PMYour broadband technology advisors are correct!
Tom
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 4:51 PMI think that was hands down the most sensible soundbyte from the entire election campaign.
pdf
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 5:46 PMTruth
Simon Reidy
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 5:16 PMThis is a giant win for the ICT community. Unfiltered fibre FTW!
Tweak
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 11:58 PMcouldnt agree more.
but for absolutely no reason, regional Australia should have to wait 14 days longer than the rest of us to get it :)
wdragon
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 5:44 PMWindsor on ‘laying cables’…
Chris Guerin
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 5:53 PMWise words from an INFORMED POLITICIAN!!!
Unlike Conroy and Abb-backwards
Dexx
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 6:25 PMWow! A Politician who actually listened to people, the right people, and made a good decision? This should definitely go down in the history books! :D
Max
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 7:10 PMEPIC WIN we pwnzrd teh wifi noobs…
sorry don’t know what came over me…
As Tom said, great soundbyte
David C
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 8:11 PMWhat utter rubbish. Locked into one technology for years to come. Still no business case and we don’t know the real cost of using it.
rob
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 8:56 PMTony’s not interested in what his electorate says. He’ll no doubt retire at the next election and wanted to get back at the Nationals.
Gorhob Perkins
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 8:57 PMSeeing a politician say something that makes perfect sense warms my heart a little.
Foxe
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 9:18 PMWho’d have thought we’d have to have a hung parliament, and resort to an independant from the bush to get sensible IT policy in this country.
I work in Sydney as a Solution Architect, but have driven most of the country in my 4WD. I have absolutely no problem with them rolling to regional Australia as first priority. We need these facilities beyond our major capital cities to encourage people to spread out. Teleworking will finally be a viable alternative, which will have major impacts on our cities.
Of course The Greens want fast rail between cities, which is just as important in my books.
Fast rail + NBN will transform the layout of our country.
blacktexta
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 10:13 PMOk, so the bumpkins in Roma get to track their artificial insemination results on Facebook with more efficiency. Thats gotta be good for the economy
Mathew
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 11:45 PMActually I’m not sure that the independents have understood the NBN impacts for regional Australia. In the smaller towns, it’s unlikely that RIMs exist and most homes will be close (2km) to the exchange, which equals > 12Mb/s. For those further out of the town centre, it’s unlikely that fibre will be run to their doorstep, so that means WiMax. This suggests for the majority of regional Australia the impact of the NBN won’t be that different to the Liberal plan.
G
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 10:40 AMI was saying the exact same thing to people and they all thought i was an idiot…
people see and hear what they want to – and we’ll never change that.
brace yourself kiddies, cos the next few years are gonna be bumpy.
Don
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 12:02 AMGood luck on them, hope it won’t be outdated before it’s even finished.
Ward Paterson
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 8:20 AMNot trying to put a negative spin on all of this, but how long will it actually take to get the NBN to regional parts of Australia? 10 years? 20 years? Over this time, what other damage will Labour do to our economy?
And in the mean time we’ll be faced with the “filter”… and a 30% mining tax…
Problem with this mining tax is that most of regional Australia (in particular mining communities) won’t get to use the NBN because they’ll be out of the job.
I think supporting Labour will have a greater negative effect on our lives. Tony Windsor is very short sighted and would suggest that if he needs fibre, he gets some Metamucil in his daily diet.
Suppose I shouldn’t complain – the Independants will be watching Gillard, and one wrong step and they’ll cross the floor and take us to the polls again……
matt
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 11:17 AMpeople in regional Australian are farmers, not miners, especially in NSW where these two independents are from. and, unless everyone in Australia wants to becomes a miner, we need the mining tax to even the economy out. so yeah, maybe the people in regional Australian won’t be going down the mines. instead they will be using the NBN, and the lower company tax rate, and the other perks that come from the mining tax to ‘everyone else’ to start up their own indie game studio, or other IT service, or god knows what else. but at least something other than relying on digging up a finite amount of dirt.
contrary to popular belief, the dirt WILL RUN OUT EVENTUALLY.
simulacrum
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 12:05 PMThe mining tax is a no-brainer. Resources are the only thing Australia has going for it, they are exhaustible, and people like Clive Palmer are making a mint out of them. Once the ore runs out the BHPs and CLive Palmer’s of this world will have moved on and your grandkids will be stuck in a country with nothing going for it. crappy education system, no IT infrastructure, a half arsed agricultural economy in a country that’s 90% desert. What are they going to do? Work for $2 a day like the Chinese?
We need to charge companies as much as we can get away with for the privilege of taking our resources, and apply that money to developing a hightech economy and world-class education system.