This election has not been kind to you Barnaby, in fact we have seen you metamorphose from straight down the line reasonable peoples politician reflecting your grass roots to a bitter and desperate party politician and one that has gone from attacking policy to one attacking persona’s.

Yesterday I heard you speak after Julia announced digital health reforms in Townsville to work in with the National Broadband Network to deliver doctors consultations to regional Australia where it would not be otherwise viable and instead of this being music to your National ears it invoked the scorn and dismal displays I have come to expect from you recently.

Lets look at this closer shall we, yesterday the Senator said;

“The Labor broadband plan could have been authored by a poor pretender to Hans Christian Anderson. Australia would have to believe in fairy tales to believe that the Labor Party can deliver this…”

Hmm I seem to remember a different tune you sang not to long ago.  In April of 2009 just after the NBN announcement by Kevin Rudd you told us;

“How could we disagree with something that is quite evidently our idea,”

“This delivers a strategic infrastructure outcome.”

“It is vitally important that the National Broadband Network gets to the corners of our country where the market has failed, at a price that is both affordable and a service that is comparable.”

Now hang on why did you say it was your idea?  Oh thats right the good Senator once worked with NSW Nationals Senator Fiona Nash on a white paper on telecommunications policy, in which a major tenant was the creation of a national fibre optic network, and restructure of the industry in recognition of the crippling lack of infrastructure in the bush.

The Senator unveiled this white paper to Parliament and of course the Howard government promptly ignored it, in the vain hope that market regulation would do the job for them but of course it won’t the numbers just aren’t there to justify the cost of delivering needed services to the bush.

See this is the problem with governments that think they need to be run as a business, and that everything has to balance on the ledger.  Not every thing is economically viable, and that’s okay.. it wasn’t viable for a private company to provide phone services to all corners of Austalia, nor was it to have bank branches everywhere, nor would it be to have private hospitals.  Where the market cannot sustain or make services pay thats when we need the government to step in to pick up the tab.  The services available to tax payers in metropolitan need to be available equally to tax payers in regional community centers.

I’ve also got the shits with Barnaby and co sprouting the reasons for having a NBN is so some kid can watch youtube faster, that is a total crock of shit.  I couldn’t care less about the mum and dad users of the Internet having fibre, but when I have to pay over 100k a year for a substandard 10mbps business grade connection just because I am not inside the CBD there is something amiss in this country.  That is someones job right there, and it is replicated all over the country.

The need for faster wider bandwidth for business is growing day by day and in 5 years the lack of infrastructure will cripple us because it already is.