Say what you will about Stephen Conroy, you can’t deny that he presented the Lateline audience with a acerbic tour de force on Wednesday.
You have to read the whole interview to appreciate it, but here’s my favourite quip — the crescendo of Conroy’s complaints.
STEPHEN CONROY: You can only come to the conclusion that they are determined to destroy the NBN in the eyes of Australians because it was an important factor in us winning government. And you’ve seen the tantrum they threw after the election, and this just is part of an ongoing tantrum by The Australian newspaper about the outcome of the election.
Do you think he’s right? The editorial staff of the offending broadsheet may have admitted as much by not acknowledging or responding to these accusations (though “statements of fact” would be altogether far more accurate) in Thursday’s paper.
There was a piece concerning the NBN, but it was just a wag of the finger at the government for seeking to attempt to exclude NBN Co’s dealings with Telstra from the statutory competition law of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth).
But what’s this I see — a typical failure to understand why the NBN needs to exist in the first place?
But it gets worse.
For it has now been disclosed […] that the agreement also hobbles wireless competition, including by prohibiting Telstra from encouraging customers who might otherwise move to NBN Co to consider high-speed wireless services instead.
(Henry Ergas, ‘Shield protects NBN from competition and scrutiny’, The Australian, 21 October 2010.)
I wonder how much it would cost to build a 3G mobile tower on every street corner? Wireless is the answer to a question that’s only asked by idiots. Fibre to the home will solve a great number of problems; News Corp just needs to lie back and think of England — or perhaps Uganda would be more appropriate here.
By the by, who else remembers the days when they were still calling it “RuddNet”? Good times.
