Differences in broadband policies

Comments on Alan Kohler “A broadband future in the balance”, 12/08/2010, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/NBN-broadband-Telstra-Election-Abbott-Gillard-pd20100812-88RNV?OpenDocument&src=rot
Alan, unfortunately you seem to be on the wrong side in your preference, from the public point of view or from their interests’ point of view.

Taxpayers will be better off if government not try to spend their money casually and wastefully.

Inequality will always exist and the only difference is in what form.

Government borrowing excessively to build the NBN will be inequitable for many taxpayers even though they are dispersed in every part of Australia.

The gradual approach to broadband development proposed by the coalition with much less taxpayers money tied to it, is the better public policy.

One should not ignore that the gradual approach is expandable and also has the insurance for further technological development, in case other technologies emerge in the future.

So, the majority of the public or taxpayers should not be hostages to businesses which would benefit more from government spending on the NBN.

It seems your preference might have been influenced by your business perspective.

But that is not necessarily completely consistent with taxpayers' interests.

That is my view on your preference.

PS: you seem to have ignored an important point, that is, the NBN will be a monopoly for quite some time, albeit a government monopoly. In many instances a government monopoly is worse than a private monopoly.

Another point you seem to have ignored is that the current ALP has already shown to be wasteful and almost reckless in spending and is not as competent as an average government in managing programs, large and small. That just doesn’t inspire confidence in its $43 billion multi-year NBN project.

Under this circumstance, everyone is entitled to be more cautious about its NBN policy and the extremely large amount of money attached to it.