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How Australia created the technology election

Tags: ausvotes, colin jacobs, delimiter, election, electronic frontiers australia, family first, filter, julia gillard, national broadband network, syndicate, tony abbott

This post is by Colin Jacobs, the chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia. It first appeared on the EFA’s site and is re-published here with his permission.

opinion This election, online issues finally got the attention they deserve. And the situation is here to stay.

I’m not talking about which party had the most Facebook followers or made the most gaffes on Twitter (Julia Gillard and Family First, respectively). Serious issues around internet governance and our internet future came into play, and by all accounts will continue to be significant as the situation plays out this week.

The first issue that affected the election was Labor’s mandatory internet censorship policy, 3 years old and counting. Throughout that time, I believe the accepted wisdom amongst the scheme’s proponents — the most notable being of course Senator Conroy — was that it would be unpopular with a handful of geeks but would appeal to the wider audience of mums and dads in the electorate.

If this was indeed the strategy, I think it backfired. Although it’s based on mainly anecdotal evidence, I believe many internet users had their political consciousness awoken by this attempt to slap censorship on the country’s net connections. When this issue was important to people, it didn’t just put them slightly off-side, but made them hopping mad, if not lifelong skeptics of the ALP. Over time I have spoken to MPs and parliamentary staffers of all stripes, and I’m pleased to report that many people did indeed contact their elected representatives and let the opinions be known. For some MPs, this amounted to a veritable flood, and the issue was absolutely on their radar.

Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to quantify what this did to Labor’s vote. The fact is that Labor suffered a big swing against them, and it’s worth noting that most of this swing went to the Greens, the most vocal opponents of the filter in Parliament. At the ballot box, we can’t disentangle the filter from other issues such as climate change and refugees that the Greens campaigned on, but I believe the filter played a big role.

The Coalition, of course, decided to oppose the filter themselves, and this didn’t happen until the election campaign was already underway. Once again, from reading the feedback online, there’s some evidence that this gave their campaign a boost amongst Australia’s netizens. The fact that they decided to make an announcement then, rather than wait for the legislation as they had previously indicated, shows that they thought this was the case as well.

So while I wouldn’t want to oversell it, internet users are hardly a minority in Australia, and issues close to their hearts are at getting more attention than ever before.

The other major technological issue of the campaign was of course the National Broadband Network. This was without a doubt the one area where the policies of the two major parties differed the most. At the risk of over-editorialising, it was also one of the few policies with long-term vision and a nation-building agenda. Labor’s policy calls for a huge investment in our broadband infrastructure, and — setting the economic arguments aside — is a clear win for internet users. The Coalition’s policy is much more modest and boils down to wringing the last drops out of the copper network while leaving the market to take care of the rest.

As it happened, both policies got some real scrutiny, culminating in Tony Abbott’s embarrassing 7.30 Report appearance where he begged off discussing the details of broadband by claiming (correctly) that he was no “tech-head”. This is a major development; our leaders are now expected to know the difference between peak and actual speeds, symmetric and asymmetric connections, ADSL2+, DOCSIS 3 and fibre to the home. Telecommunications capability has assumed a place next to, even ahead of, rail and roads as critical infrastructure. This is as it should be.

The NBN is still making itself felt. The regional independents, now ubiquitously dubbed “kingmakers” by the media, have all flagged this as an issue. Nothing reduces the “tyranny of distance” like a fast net connection would, so it’s a crucial issue for regional voters. If the three amigos decide to put Gillard back in the Lodge, our broadband future may have something to do with it.

Incidentally, an example of just how badly the filter has damaged Labor’s credibility with regard to online issues is some of the negative comments we received for praising this broadband policy in contrast to that of the Liberal party. Although this failure to “maintain the rage” against Conroy is temporary and I hope forgivable, the ALP have a long way to go if they ever want to regain the trust of Australian internet users.

I haven’t yet touched on the uses of the net itself, including social media, in the campaign. The major parties focussed as normal on scary TV ads to get their message out, and online spending by the major parties (as best we can ascertain) came in at well under 10 percent. The Greens and minor parties relied much more heavily on drumming up support online, both as a deliberate strategy and due to financial necessity. It doesn’t seem to have done them any harm at all. It’s interesting to ponder what will the next election will look like; will the 30-second TV spot still reign supreme?

With the way things are going, we might not have to wait three years to find out.

Image credit: Believed to be public domain or out of copyright

Is Australia’s Rudd Labor Government taking Aussies for a ride when it comes to the Internet and broadband?

First we have a minimum 12Mbps fibre broadband guarantee that has seen delay after delay, with a 5 year build-out timeframe that hasn’t seen a single sod of soil turned, any contracts awarded and the removal of Australia’s dominant telco, Telstra, from the NBN (National Broadband Network) tender bidding process.

Then came the revelations that Australia’s new Government wants to censor the Internet, supposedly to protect Australians from child pornographers by blocking websites that pedophiles aren’t using in any case, preferring instead to operate via P2P and other more secretive channels. This then led the Government to announce it would trial the filtering of P2P services as well.

Now we have the Federal Opposition making claims that the “Rudd Government does not believe taxpayers should have to foot the bill for broadband services in any part of Australia where a commercially sustainable wireless option is available”.

Opposition Shadow Minister for Communications, Senator Nick Minchin, says in that statement that this “raises serious questions about its motivation to spend $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money on its trouble-plagued National Broadband Network”.

The rest of the Senator’s statement is as follows:

“It has been reported that the Rudd Government plans to reduce subsidies available under the Australian Broadband Guarantee (ABG) program by tens-of-millions of dollars because of the continued expansion of 3G wireless services.

“The ABG was established by the previous Coalition Government to provide Australians living in under-serviced parts of the country access to subsidised broadband services such as satellite.
 
“In what could amount to a major broadband policy shift by Labor, the spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has told The Australian: “The purpose of the ABG is to ensure metro-comparable broadband is available to all Australians. If it is available from a sustainable commercial operator then there is no need for taxpayers to subsidise.”
 
“Senator Minchin said these comments indicate that the Rudd Government itself does not really believe taxpayer money should be spent in any area where the private sector is providing some type of viable broadband service fixed or wireless.
 
“The Rudd Government wants to spend $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money on a fibre to the node project that will replicate the type of fixed-line services already available to many Australians, particularly those living in metro areas, but is now effectively saying it doesn’t really believe taxpayers should have to pay,” Senator Minchin said.

Senator Minchin continued: “While Labor’s firm promise is to deliver new high-speed fibre-to-the-node broadband services to 98 per cent of Australians, the experts have long said and the NBN bidders themselves have now confirmed, that this is nothing more than a naive Labor pipe dream, even with the Commonwealth subsidy.
“So if Labor still plans to spend the $4.7 billion, do the spokesman’s comments indicate that it has now given up on delivering fibre to the node to rural, regional and remote Australians as promised?

“Does this pave the way for it to do what many have long suspected, roll out fibre in well-serviced and easy-to-reach metro areas until the money runs out?” Senator Minchin asked.
 
“On top of that, Labor will scale back the ABG and what tell rural, regional and remote Australians that ‘even though we promised you fibre to the node broadband like the city, we’ve decided you can’t have it and expensive wireless or satellite is good enough for you’?”
 
“By contrast the previous Coalition Government was to contribute $958 million towards a new, high-speed broadband network for under serviced parts of rural and regional Australia (OPEL), which was targeted for completion by mid 2009. Labor cancelled this project with no alternative to it and now also wants to scale back the ABG.
 
“Senator Minchin said these developments made urgent the need for Senator Conroy to release his expert panel’s report which includes recommendations on bids for the NBN and is due on Wednesday (21 January).
 
“This report, as well as that of the ACCC on crucial competition and regulatory issues, must be released, with the opportunity for public comment before the Rudd Government makes any decision,” Senator Minchin concluded.

Serious questions have been raised, but given the torturous path that has already been taken, clear answers from politicians seems as forlorn a hope as encountering an honest second-hand car salesman, true world peace, a sound gold-backed currency or an operating system that doesn’t crash.

Source:   http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/strategy/22723-coalition-says-labor-changing-98-broadband-nbn-promise

Google launched the service to take on online communications pioneer Skype.

Local users logged-on to their accounts yesterday to discover a new directory of phone contacts listed under a voice calling link, along with an offer for some free calls and prices for international calls to landlines and mobiles.

A Google Australia spokeswoman confirmed the phone lists are compiled from data extracted from users’ emails and chat sessions.

Google has not responded to repeated requests for clarification on the nature of internal account searches and the extraction methods used to populate personal web phone menus, nor has it indicated whether it sought users’ approval before taking action.

But online privacy advocates say it appears Google has not learned from outrage over the Buzz social networking tool that automatically connected users based on data mined from personal emails and chat sessions, nor from the angry reaction to Facebook changes to privacy settings that exposed previously hidden material.

“As far as I can see, Google has done this without even notice, let alone consent,” said Roger Clarke, chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation. “And they’ve learnt so little that they seem not to have offered an opt-out.”

David Vaile, executive director of the University of NSW’s Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, said it appeared Google’s auto-exposure tools were getting a little out of control.

“This has shades of Buzz,” he said. “When will big data-mongers ever learn that opt-in is much more respectful than ‘opt-out – if you can’.”

Mr Vaile questioned whether Google had clearly and transparently disclosed their use of its tools to everyone potentially affected by their operation.

Google confirmed that local users registered under the English-US language setting can access the web phone service, that has not officially launched in Australia.

Source:   http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/telecommunications/gmail-phone-service-raises-eyebrows/story-fn4iyzsr-1225910912539

Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott, the ABC’s Chris Uhlmann, Adam Bandt and Bob Katter at the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage Source: The Australian

INDEPENDENT MP Tony Windsor has questioned the $43 billion National Broadband Network price tag, describing it as a “fictitious number”.

Mr Windsor is one of three country MPs at the centre of power-sharing negotiations, including Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter, who want access to Treasury secretary Ken Henry and Finance department secretary David Tune as they prepare a “roadmap” before entering into talks with Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.

They’ve issued a “call for information” on seven key areas, including access to the costings on all election commitments. As a result Labor could finally be forced to reveal how the $43bn figure was derived.

Mr Windsor described the request as “a test to the parties in terms of their promises going into the election” and questioned the veracity of the NBN funds.

He was flanked by the two federal independents and newly elected Greens MP Adam Bandt.

The NBN is set to be the largest ever infrastructure project undertaken in Australia but the government has never provided a cost-benefit analysis to support the ambitious project.

In fact Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has repeatedly said there was no need for such a study.

Senator Conroy last reiterated that stance to reporters on August 10 at the National Press Club, Canberra.

“Telstra made it very clear that they could find no business case beyond five capital cities and north and south of Sydney.

“So the Gillard government has decided we’re going to do it. We’re not going to wait another 12 months doing a cost-benefit analysis.

“We are leading the world in leading Australians to the 21st century. We’re not hiding it, we’re making it clear that this is a government investment,” Senator Conroy said then.

Taxpayers will provide $27bn to fund the NBN with the remainder coming from private equity.

The Coalition will scrap the fibre-based NBN and replace it with a $6bn version using a mix of technologies including HFC and wireless.
The Greens publicly back the project but don’t want the network privatised in years to come.

“The NBN should go ahead, with priority for communities in regional areas, and it should absolutely stay in public hands so that we don’t see another repeat of the debacle that followed the privatisation of Telstra,” Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam said last month.

“The opposition’s wrecking tactics in the telco sector have gone far enough with the in-principle agreement signed between Telstra and the Commonwealth Tony Abbott no longer has a constituency for blocking, delaying and avoiding reforms,” Senator Ludlam said.

Labor and the Greens want Telstra to separate its wholesale and retail operations – a proposal the opposition has railed against.

Earlier today, the three independents outlined the process they would undertake before commencing talks with Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott.

“We need to establish where the budget bottom line is … in terms of the promises made by the parties,” Mr Windsor said.

“What we are actually talking about here is in terms of the promises that were made during the election campaign by both sides. We need a starting point of the finances of the nation.”

Source:  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/government/nbn-under-scrutiny-by-country-mps-windsor-katter-and-oakeshott/story-fn4htb9o-1225909874574

He said the chosen sectors – agriculture, renewable energy, the digital economy, lifestyle and tourism – had been identified by the Australian Innovation Research Centre in its report, An Innovation Strategy for Tasmania A New Vision for Economic Development: Conceptual Overview and Options Outline, presented by Professor Jonathan West in late 2009, and that many of the initiatives had been designed to strengthen and support small businesses.

“Small businesses will be critical to the strategy‘s success, because they make up 95 percent of private sector employment in Tasmania’s food processing and agriculture sectors, and 90 percent in tourism,” Bartlett said.

The premier said initiatives to support the innovation strategy,  including those in the 2010-11 State Budget, included, for the digital economy:
- $5.85m over two years for the sector to increase awareness of the opportunities provided by the digital economy;
- $0.6m on a number of strategies to grow awareness levels, including establishing a hands-on digital coaching pilot and a digital tool kit for small businesses;
- $0.25m on research into the impact of the NBN deployment on business engagement in the digital economy and the effectiveness of government programmes;
- $0.4m to migrate key business websites to the Government 2.0 model for online information sharing and service delivery;
- $3.6m for a Digital Futures Capital Fund to fund the development and delivery of digital content, applications and services that add value to businesses and the community engaging in the Tasmanian digital economy;
- a Digital Futures Advisory Council “to bring together world-class expertise to ensure Tasmania capitalises on its digital opportunities;”
- collaborating with industry and TasICT to develop a Digital Economy Industry Strategy (DEIS).

The $3.6m Digital Futures fund will be used to support the three NBN Stage 1 connected towns to offer in-home eHealth services for chronic diseases, including in-home consultations. The strategy suggests that it could also be used for innovative ideas such as eLearning, smart energy management, culture and entertainment and immersive experiences for the community.

The new Government 2.0 model for online information sharing and service delivery is being adopted by governments across Australia and the Tasmanian Government’s $0.4m will be used to migrate key websites, starting with the government’s business services sites, to this model.

The migration will incorporate the Council of Australian Governments’ Business Online Services initiative, which will interconnect the three levels of government business services from a single web portal.

The Digital Advisory Council will “bring together the experience of world-class practitioners, end-users, and analysts to provide a whole-of-economy perspective on the most beneficial opportunities for the government to pursue in developing the Tasmanian digital economy.”

Source:                                                                                                                                                                                           http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/government-tech-policy/41404-tasmanian-government-innovation-strategy-builds-on-nbn

Ms Gillard wrote to the three rural MP’s – New England’s Tony Windsor and Lyne’s Rob Oakeshott from New South Wales and Bob Katter from Kennedy in far north Queensland – to respond to a formal request for information.

The MPs had written a ‘Request for Information‘ to both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott with a list of seven ‘pathways to progress.’ Top of the list was a request for access to both Treasury Secretary Ken Henry and Finance Secretary David Tune for briefings on the economy and election promise costings.

The three also wanted briefings from the department heads of eight departments, from Communications, to Health, Education, Infrastructure, Agriculture, Climate Change, Defence and Resources.

They want the Ministers with portfolio responsibility for these departments and their shadow ministers made available.

Ms Gillard said she has sought advice from Prime Minister & Cabinet on whether changes to Caretaker conventions would be required to meet all of the requests, but at face value said she was happy to make the department heads and ministers available.

But with broadband perhaps playing a more significant role in the outcome of this election than would have been expected just a couple of weeks ago, the Prime Minister went further to offer the MPs the briefing from Mr Quigley.

“Further, with respect to your keen interest in Broadband, would you like a briefing from the Chief Executive and Director of NBNCo Mr Mike Quigley?” Ms Gillard wrote to the three MPs. “He would be best placed to provide you with the technical information on aspects of the NBN including the roll-out and other information you may be seeking?”

Ms Gillard said PM&C head Terry Moran was looking into whether the caretaker conventions would be required to be amended. If they are, she said she would seek agreement with the Opposition leader to make those amendments.

“I would be happy to arrange for briefings from the Secretaries of the Departments you have requested,” Ms Gillard said in her letter. “However, given the importance of maintaining the caretaker conventions, I would like to clarify aspects of your request.”

“In particular, will you be seeking information that would go beyond that which would be normally provided under the caretaker conventions as for your fist request?”

The three rural independents, all of them ex-Nationals, made a series of other requests, including a commitment from both sides that they serve the full three year term, and for a number of changes to Parliamentary procedures.

Ms Gillard gave her commitment to the full term and said she would have a full document outlining Government’s proposals for Parliamentary reform.

She said her conversations with Mr Windsor, Mr Oakeshott and Mr Katter had been conducted “in good faith and in the national interest.”

“Good faith and acting in the national interest will continue to be my approach. I understand your strong commitment to these principles and I share it,” Ms Gillard said.

Source:                                                                                                                                                                                           http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/government-tech-policy/41406-gillard-offers-independents-quigley-briefing

Independents want NBN costs broken down into bite-sized pieces.

Independent MP Tony Windsor has challenged the Gillard government to provide “the real figure” for its broadband plan for Australia.

Windsor, one of five independent MP’s likely to shape the leadership of the next Federal Government, told the National Press Club in Canberra that the $43 billion price tag for Labor’s NBN plan is little more than a  ”figure that’s bandied about.”

“I haven’t seen the real number,” the member for New England said. ”In fact, I think it’s fictitious. We want to find out what the real number is. There should be a trail that leads us to that.”

Windsor spoke at the Press Club in a joint address with fellow independents Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter as well as new Greens MP Adam Bandt.

Afterwards, Katter warned that he was not satisfied with the Coalition’s broadband plans.

“Outside of the metropolitan areas, we’ve had a dreadful experience with privatisation,” Mr Katter said.

“We’ve had a dreadful experience with privatisation and they can give us all the undertakings in the world. Really when you go to a privatised scheme, the cities will get everything and [regional areas will] get nothing.

“Privatisation is the great worry for me in the Coalition’s approach. The Telstra privatisation has been an absolute disaster. It doesn’t matter how you look at it – this has been an absolute disaster for Australia. I can give you example after example. So we don’t want a repeat of that with broadband and that would worries me greatly. “

Source: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/229934,windsor-challenges-gillard-on-nbn-price-tag.aspx

ISP iiNet has raised the bar on its “terabyte” broadband plans by extending the offer to new sign-ups on national broadband network (NBN) infrastructure.

The Perth ISP announced late today [PDF] that NBN customers on a 25 Mbps speed could opt for a terabyte of data quota from the start of next month.

The users would also get a free speed boost – from 25 Mbps to the full 100 Mbps down / 8 Mbps up “until June 2011″, according to the ISP.

The temporary 100 Mbps boost applied not only to the terabyte plan but to all NBN fibre plans offered by iiNet. It was available to new customers.

“The main advantage of the NBN is speed,” iiNet chief executive Michael Malone said.

“You don’t know what it’s like until you actually use a reliable 100 Mbps fibre connection in the home.

“You could download an album from iTunes in under 15 seconds, or grab a whole movie in a little under seven minutes, so we’re also ramping up the amount of data included to make sure customers can really use it.”

The Perth ISP was first to market with a terabyte of quota for DSL users earlier this week.

The move prompted competitors iPrimus and TPG to announce similarly high-quota plans (see comparison table here).

iiNet also unveiled increased quota on its other fibre plans for the NBN today.

Source:  http://www.itnews.com.au/News/229454,iinet-brings-terabyte-broadband-plan-to-nbn.aspx

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