John Linton
......but unlike MLK who aspired to bring about massive positive change for the benefit of a section of the American people.....Krudd's (increasingly precarious) dream of breaking every single promise he made to win a first term and doing absolutely nothing but negative things for three years yet still getting the ultra stupid electorate to vote him in for a second term of access to the trough. I read this, and several other articles with amusement this morning:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/government-and-telstra-caught-in-a-staring-contest-20100226-p8zw.htmlerren
The hyperbole of the normally more restrained Ian Verrender took me by surprise (sweat dripping from the brow, Russian roulette references etc) but what made me smile in this piece of 'comment', as in the other similar comments, is this stupid, and totally unfounded, assumption that the Krudd 'NBN2' nonsense is anything but a ludicrous piece of political nonsense. Verrender, like every other media commentator (whose knowledge of Australian communications is the same as Krudd's (zero) continue to make comments like this:
"where taxpayers foot the bill for a far more expensive fibre-optic network and Telstra shareholders find themselves with not just an ageing network, but a redundant one."
(last sentence in the article) when the fact is simply that an 'NBN2' can't be built without Telstra's participation at all. All Krudd, via Stupid Stephen, can do is huff and puff and make unconstitutional threats that will be over turned in the High Court and, along the way, ensure they lose the next election. There is no semblance of a "stand off" - there's simply a board of a private company, via its CEO, telling a bunch of socialist cloud cuckoo land wankers to "rack off". Stupid Stephen's (Krudd's) threats to effectively end Telstra's commercial life via not allowing them more mobile spectrum and 'repossessing' their Foxtel investment should get Stupid Stephen and Krudd sent to gaol; it is such an outrageous affront to constitutional law. To consider that Telstra would give in to such an empty threat (on which you may be sure they will have taken the very best legal advice) is just plain childish.
What Telstra, I would have thought, would be happy enough to do, is to find a way of getting a massive amount of money as 'compensation' for getting rid of an asset that is depreciating in value and has a life (nothing to do with building or not building an 'NBN2') of less than 20 years or so and presents significant funding, management and operational problems over that time. Doubtless Telstra will replace the CBD, then the capital city, then the regional city PSTN with its own fibre over that time and replacing the country/rural facilities at the very end with a ten years or so of technology development wireless services. An evolution of technology as has previously been the case. I'm sure Telstra would be happy enough with $A20 billion or so from anyone stupid enough to ante up that sort of money.
But all this begs the bleedingly obvious questions. As a newly created government agency hasn't got the ability to manage diddly squat - how do you create an entity that is capable of running a national network (in decline) from scratch for many years in to the future while you try and build another one? Hasn't anyone considered how hard it is to do either of those jobs singly let alone how impossibly difficult it is to do them in tandem? Being the quintessential back of the bus ticket 'planner' it appears Krudd has simply made the assumption that it's just a month or so of organisation chart design and a pair of metaphorical scissors with some bean counters agreeing a few numbers.
Given Krudd's demonstrable lack of management skills and his gigantic ego perhaps he is totally unaware of what the personnel involved who would have to be hived off in to a job security future of zippo would think about working in a job that had no future at all and would require progressive redundancies from day one? How many of the current copper network key staff would not be looking for another job the moment such a ludicrous scenario was rammed through some version of parliament? None? The PSTN will not last too many decades into the future but it will not be replaced by an 'NBN2'. However if Krudd continues with this particular stunt he will continue to destroy Australia's communications infrastructure (let's face it there is only one wire line infrastructure in the country and it is used by a large percentage of the population) and Krudd has absolutely zero understanding of how it may be replaced - apart from his meaningless desire to escape his broken promises mapped out on that tattered bus ticket.
Apart from the sheer impossibility of the logistics there is no conceivable reason why Telstra should be forcibly be dismembered to allow a disgraced and overtly lying political clown to try and remain flying round the world in self aggrandisement while the inept rabble he selected to manage the country continues to kill the population or burn their residences to the ground as well as......I am already over my word limit to list the stupidities and lying monstrosities perpetrated by the screech owl, little miss wrong the minister for the destruction of the environment etc, etc.
The only real question is whether the Australian population will be stupid enough to allow Krudd and his uneducated, lying rabble to finish the job of totally screwing up Australia's future?