NBN Co board members offer resignation en masse

Resignations seen as reflecting lack of confidence from new Coalition government

Oliver Laughland
theguardian.com, Monday 23 September 2013 09.54 AEST

Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull has been a vocal critic of the board in recent months. Photograph: AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
The entire board of the NBN Co, the government-owned company responsible for operating Australia’s broadband network, has offered to resign in a move interpreted as reflecting a lack of confidence from the new Coalition government.

The resignations were agreed at a board meeting on Friday, Guardian Australia understands.

All seven board members, including chairwoman Siobhan McKenna, have agreed to resign, with just one member, Kerry Schott, expected to to be invited to stay on, according to Fairfax Media.

The resignations have yet to be accepted by the communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and it is unlikely they will be formalised in the short term as they need approval from cabinet.

Turnbull has been a vocal critic of the board in recent months. In July he described it as lacking the proper experience to operate the country’s broadband network.

“... it is remarkable that such a large board doesn’t have anyone with hands-on experience in building a telecommunications network or running one, and if you were assembling a board for a project of this kind, that’s the sort of experience you would want to have on it,” he said.

Turnbull has indicated in the past that former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski could make a suitable candidate to head the NBN Co.

The Coalition is looking to change Australia’s national broadband network from a faster fibre-to-the-premise model, begun under the previous Labor government, to a slower and cheaper fibre-to-the-node model.

The move has met with protest and an online petition calling for the Coalition to return to the Labor model has received nearly 260,000 signatures.

Guardian Australia is awaiting comment from NBN Co.


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http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/23/nbn-co-board-resigns

I dont see the board resigning as an issue for the govt. They should have been sacked anyway for their budget blow out and slow roll out. I'm a supporter of FTH but still these lot are the reason the coalition had an excuse to turn the NBN into a half-arsed FTN set up.

Ludlam is a fantastic politician and far more deserving than the second choice Labor candidate. If he has indeed missed out, it is a loss for the senate. Don't play the guilt by association card; he is a very moderate member of the green party.

And you do.

You have pulled about ten line directly out of your arse.

Business as usual...

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/tony-abbotts-broken-indigenous-promise-and-news-corp-breaking-bad/

Tonys lies are stacking up. Where is the moral authority Alan Jones?

I love how the evidence about Tony making the promise kept building up and up.

First it was one guy remembering it on twitter.

Then an ABC article with no correction.

Then a Senator.

Then a transcript of his words.

Then a video of him saying specifically what he was believed to have said.

And at every point the Murdoch employee defends him. Over and over. While engaging in ad hominem attacks, lies and spouting about 'conspiracy theories'.

It'd be hilarious if it wasn't about the PM and it didn't involve the Liberal Parties propaganda wing News Corp.

Good thing Tony has a sharp cleaver ready for all of these cuts.

-PB

It's possible realising his busy schedule wouldn't permit him to spend his first week as PM he instead pledged to spend a week per year, which may have been acceptable to the Yolngu people. What Tony should be measured on isn't how much time he spends dwelling among Aboriginal communities rather whether his policies improve Aboriginal outcomes.

Antony Green had doubts about the Sports Party right from election night, even with the predictor putting them in... mainly because he saw that it was based on a massive number of preference inputs which with even small changes in the orders of the minor parties would massively change the result.


As it works out, it's likely for WA's last 2 spots to go as you say to EITHER a Labor+PUP OR Greens+Sports combination... at this stage the Labor+PUP is the favourite. Probably a win for ALP to have an extra senator plus the LNP being able to deal with Palmer rather than the Greens (Sports would be an unknown probably slightly leaning towards LNP rather than ALP).



Tasmania also is not confirmed yet, with the Sex Party, PUP and Liberals all in with a chance at claiming the final spot... at the moment Sex Party has it but Antony has predicted that they won't hold on once Tasmania's unusually high below-the-line vote is included (Tasmania often has more than 10% BTL vs about 3-6% on the mainland). I think the Libs are likely to snatch the final seat.

None of these 3 seats will be confirmed until voting is 100% complete and the AEC uses the computer to calculate the preference distributions.

The Motoring Enthusiasts in Victoria, Lib Dems in NSW, PUP in Qld and Family First in SA are all pretty much certainties as minor party Senators.

Likely Senate is therefore:
LNP 34
ALP 26
Greens 9
Minor 7 (1x continuing Dem Lab, 1x Lib Dems, 2x Palmer, 1x Family First, 1x Xenophon, 1x Motoring)

Let's give Abbott a chance to prove himself
Date
September 21, 2013

Mike Carlton

Here is an olive branch: it would be a good idea to give Tony Abbott some time to prove himself as prime minister.

No, this is not satire. Nor have I gone soft in the head. As I have written, he won the job in an unprincipled campaign of deceit and low cunning. I still believe he is unfit for the office.

Albo has nonetheless achieved a substantial measure of greatness.

But history shows that the prime ministership can sometimes have transformative powers, elevating those who attain it. Bob Hawke abandoned his boozy larrikin ways to become Labor's most electorally successful leader. Paul Keating, with no formal education beyond the age of 15, rose to a dazzling command of the policy heights. John Howard, like Abbott also once seen as unelectable, was the towering conservative figure of his generation for nearly 12 years.


Can the position transform the man?: 'It seems only reasonable to wait and see what Abbott makes of it'. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
It seems only reasonable to wait and see what Abbott makes of it. Or it of him. Time will tell, and pretty quickly. I can't see myself ever agreeing with Arthur Sinodinos who, in a truly epic piece of sycophancy in the Murdoch press on Tuesday, likened his leader to the victorious Roman general Fabius Maximus. ''Abbott the fighter has evolved into Abbott the putative father of the nation,'' he bugled. Yuk. How sad that such brown-nosing did no good for poor Arthur,who barely scraped into the outer ministry as assistant something-or-other.

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The only surprising thing about the Abbott frontbench is people were surprised there's hardly a woman in sight. Even if the abrasive Sophie Mirabella had not been punted by the good folk of Indi, there would still have been only two women in cabinet. If ministers are promoted on merit, as the likes of Bronwyn Bishop have been furiously proclaiming, the logical conclusion is there are very few meritorious women on the Coalition backbench.

Instead, Abbott has lumbered himself with drones and has-beens. That Brylcreemed dolt Kevin Andrews failed so badly at selling Howard's Work Choices that he was flicked to the immigration portfolio, where he stage-managed the Mohamed Haneef disaster. Inexplicably he is now Social Services Minister with another batty right-winger, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, as his parliamentary secretary. The new Health Minister, Peter Dutton, was so bereft of ideas in opposition that the last parliamentary question he put to either of Labor's health ministers was in 2009. God help the poor, the aged and the sick.

And God help science . It is almost beyond belief that Australia is without a federal science minister for the first time since 1931. But I suppose if sciencey stuff comes up, the putative father of the nation can always toss it to Alan Jones or Viscount Monckton for an answer.

* * * * * *

The sudden outbreak of peace and love in the Labor Party is unnerving, to say the least. After the years of treachery and backstabbing, it is almost surreal to see Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten graciously showering each other with elaborate public compliments as they vie for the leadership.

The word is that Albo has the vote of the membership sewn up, with Shorten a half head in front on the caucus numbers. I'm told the right-wing dinosaurs of the union movement, the infamous faceless men, have been hitting the phones like crazy in the past week. Terrified that their traditional stranglehold on power is slipping away, they are desperate to lock in the Right behind Shorten, if for no other reason than to prove they can still call the shots.

The one sure thing of this election is the rank and file genie is triumphantly out of the ALP bottle and can never be stuffed back in. It's called democracy, and it may prove to be Kevin Rudd's greatest achievement. Next, Labor must ensure the membership gets to vote on candidates for the upper houses, federal and state. Those plums, too, can no longer be left to a handful of scheming factional heavies to divvy up over a yum cha lunch.

I'm guessing Albo will win the gig. Which is odd, because of all the politicians I have known over the years, he is among the least ambitious. Genuinely and modestly so. I've never seen the field marshal's baton poking from his knapsack. Not born great, he has nonetheless achieved a substantial measure of greatness and may well have more thrust upon him.

* * * * * *

What a strange little insect is Dr Peter Phelps, the Liberal Whip in the NSW Legislative Council. All week I have been getting emails denouncing him.

It began 10 days ago, September 11, the 40th anniversary of the overthrow of Chile's elected socialist president Salvador Allende. To celebrate, Phelps made a bizarre speech in the upper house lauding the ''morally courageous man'' who staged the coup, General Augusto Pinochet.

''Yes, Pinochet killed people,'' he conceded. ''If anyone knows of any other way to overthrow a government than by military force, then let me hear about it.''

This is an unusual notion from a Liberal MP in a parliamentary democracy, to say the least, but there you go. Pinochet was a blood-soaked tyrant. After his fall, a Chilean government commission estimated some 3000 Desaparecidos, opponents of his regime, had disappeared without trace. Another 29,000 were tortured. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country, many of them to Australia. Pinochet also squirrelled away some $28 million in Swiss bank accounts.

Understandably, Australians of Chilean origin are outraged at Phelps' mad rant. A Sydney lawyer, Adriana Navarro, wrote to me that the speech had forced thousands of Chileans in this country to ''relive those horrible days''.

All I could reply is that Phelps is a renowned ratbag. Hovering far out on the Liberals' lunatic right-wing fringe, he once likened a Labor opponent to a Nazi SS guard at Belsen, has accused climate scientists of totalitarian tendencies, and had to be rebuked by Barry O'Farrell for telling someone on Twitter to ''go f--- yourself, Commie''. Normally he is best ignored.

Navarro also wrote to the Premier on behalf of her compatriotas, calling for Phelps to apologise and withdraw. ''This is the minimum that must be done to show that your government, Premier, will not accept any attempt to glorify murder,'' she said.

So far there has been no reply.

smhcarlton@gmail.

Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/lets-give-abbott-a-chance-to-prove-himself-20130920-2u537.html#ixzz2fm5k9jLY

Edited by Joffa: 24/9/2013 12:53:31 PM

Turnbulls NBN press conference is a farce.

He's open to trashing the policy he took to the election, his trashing of the existing board prior to the election wasn't 'personal', he's already slipped on one of his promises (he promised a review within 60 days of Sept 12 on his website, and has now changed to saying it's going to happen from 60 days of some future time when he gets his new board in place), and he's calling for 'true news' about the NBN. He's stammering, backflipping, pausing every few seconds. Looks really poor.

Is he going to release the latest version of the NBN Co corporate, so we can see how far behind schedule this thing is? If he's calling for more transparency of the costs and roll out progress I don't see how this can be described as a "farce". If he's open to the policy he took to the election being "trashed" and this invites more scrutiny of the policy framework, technology mix and cost benefit then this can only be a positive thing. It's certainly a much open door approach than the clandestine approach Labor NBN Co took with their hidden corporate plans, dodgy target revisions and non detailed costings.

Not sure. Apparently it leaked to the AFR. I don't think Turnbull really thinks much of it anyway, and he's doing his little reviews supposedly within 2 months of his new board. A lot of people in the tech area aren't especially interested in it now, because it has no bearing because the coalition are going to force FTTN, and stop FTTP everywhere that isn't already in construction (there are places in the 1 year plan that aren't going to get FTTP).

The June 2013 report said they had 208,000 connected. What has been released is that the Sep report now forecasts 729,000 connected by 30th June 2014.

I don't believe that the revisions were 'dodgy'. The original plan shouldn't have been made at all in my opinion, that was a huge mistake because it meant that when Telstra stalled the negotiations it blew them out so far it wasn't even close. From there, there have been contractors not delivering (remember that NBN doesn't actually do the building, it's private companies, the same that will build the FTTN) and the asbestos problem as key reasons why they had to downgrade. As for costings, what I looked at (having been following NBN closely) they were quite detailed and when they were based on actual numbers they were accurate.

The nation will have to get FTTP eventually. Changing from FTTP to FTTN does little more than cost the Government (thus taxpayer) money in the long run, for the 'benefit' of getting places at the later end of the NBN rollout, slightly faster internet than what they can get now, 2 or 3 years before they would have got the FTTP nbn.

I have no problem with correcting rollout stats and being more 'conservative' with these forecasts, but surely everyone can see how much of a farce it will be that the Coalition will buy back from Telstra the Copper network it sold off around a decade ago.

There is also no real indication about what Telstra will extract in exchange for changing their contract and for NBNco to acquire the Copper network. Thodey is smart and legally required to maximise the return for his shareholders.

The big concern with the Libs NBN is the fact they want to allow "competition" for private companies to build their own infrastructure themselves. What this means is that the most profitable areas (in capital cities obviously) to be rolled out by Telstra and co leaving NBN co the rest.

Problem with this is, they need the profitable areas of the network to subsidise the less profitable ones. Without that NBNCo services are going to be way pricier or lose lots of money.

Well if we consider that there are 12 million premises (or thereabouts) and 22% will be getting fiber, that means around 2- 3 million premises will be connected to fiber, so the FTTH roll out will continue under the Liberal government, mostly in greenfields, some older brownfields where the copper has sufficiently deteriorated and commercially attractive regions, so the idea FTTH will cease under the Liberals is false.

Beyond the 22% that proportion will increase as new greenfield estates are built, connected by FTTH, brownfields are gentrified and converted to FTTH, and perhaps eventually the whole country if and when applications for mass consumption are developed that require speeds only FTTH can provide, and if and when that happens it will be demand driven based on tangible market factors rather than speculation. I like the coalitions policy better because it is technology and market agnostic and not presumptive about what the future will be like.

A good article from Mike Carlton, cheers for that Joffa, he's a good bloke.

The more I think about it the more I think what will happen is:
1. NBN will be rolled out in such a way that it's not competitive with the privately run networks that they will be allowed to roll out and control
2. The Libs will sell off the "Labor failure" back to Telstra at fire sale value
3. We are back to virtually the same shitty situation we have now

It's setting the scene for Cable Wars mk 2. The only difference is this time around, it might be a coalition of carriers who join up to fight telstra, instead of just Optus. We'll end up with two sets of wiring, expensive line rental costs, expensive setup fees, more expensive plans, slower speeds and the exact same fucking problem that lead to the creation of NBNco in the first fucking place.

Oh, and forcing the Government to pay Telstra even more cash to get better service outside cities, because it sure as hell isn't going to be profitable for Telstra to do it on their own.

Edited by macktheknife: 24/9/2013 05:49:32 PM

After the last week I've decided that Tony Abbott doesn't need to stop the boats from SE Asia, he needs to stop the Bogans from leaving Australia and going over there and embarrassing our country. #stopthebogans

The whole time I was there I was thinking "Man I hope I don't have to go to hospital here, I don't speak mandarin so if there's something complicated wrong I'm screwed" but then I realised I'd probably get in the ER as a white guy, they'd take one look at me and go "Just over there with the other Australians, sir" and put me in a corner with a bunch of guys in bintang singlets and scooter parts sticking out of them.

We should let them in so they can outbreed the bogans.

I would love to know how these morons got in power.

lol @ Turnbull wanting Ziggy for fucking NBNCo.

-PB

Interesting read from Wayne Swan in 2011 regqarding Keynesian economics and budget surplus/deficits

TWO and a half years ago, the fall of Lehman Brothers triggered the global financial crisis and sharemarket collapse that pushed the world economy to the brink of utter catastrophe. Australia's swift policy response saved tens of thousands of jobs, countless business failures, and a level of individual misery and hardship that can never be known. Today, despite the hammer blows of recent natural disasters, our economic outlook is strong and we are in a better position than almost any of our peers.
With private demand strengthening, unemployment falling and our economy pushing towards capacity, we now face new challenges. [size=7]We need to restrain public spending, and stay the course back to budget surpluses. Just as it was the right thing to step in and support demand during the financial crisis, the right thing to do is to take a step back as private activity recovers. That's why, since we first put together the stimulus package, I have adopted the motto: if we are going to be Keynesians in the downturn, we have to be Keynesians on the way up again. That means a speedy return to surplus.[/size]
To those who ask why that surplus is so important to me, I point to the influence of British economist John Maynard Keynes, one of the 20th century's great thinkers. His influence can be seen in both the government's response to the global downturn and to the recovery.
In the 80 years since the Great Depression, Keynes's belief that government has a role to play in avoiding recessions and ensuring prosperity and progress has become Labor's economic compass, helping us set a course through turbulent seas. His direct influence has waxed and waned, and in places been rightly superseded by the insights of other economic thinkers, but when recessions and depressions have hit, Keynes's broad prescriptions have come to the fore - and they have done so in a way that has maintained the essential social-democratic nature of Australian society. Like Keynes, Labor is guided by the understanding that recessions can and do have long-lasting costs through the destruction of jobs and small businesses, and the erosion of capital.
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WHEN Labor returned to power in 2007, more than 11 years in opposition had filled our parliamentary party with big plans for economic reform. Our aim was to build on the achievements of the Hawke and Keating governments, but with new emphases on human capital investment, environmental sustainability, infrastructure development, and social inclusion. It was to be a modern incarnation of Labor's social-democratic vision, designed to maximise the advantage from the shift of world economic gravity to our region, and to ensure the benefits were enjoyed by more of our people.
Australia, it seemed, was on the cusp of perhaps the most significant burst of prosperity in its history, and our vision was to make that prosperity economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.
This time of anticipation paralleled another moment in Labor's history. In October 1929, the government of Jim Scullin was elected with plans to deliver greater prosperity to every Australian after five years of economic stagnation. But just two days after the swearing in of the new Labor ministry, those hopes were dashed when a Wall Street collapse plunged an unprepared world into economic chaos. Within 12 months, Australian GDP had dropped by 10 per cent and real private consumption expenditure by 20 per cent. Two years after that, our unemployment rate hit 19.75 per cent - one of the highest rates in the world at the time.
The Scullin government, hamstrung by a conservative majority in the Senate and crippled after the resignation of E. G. ''Red Ted'' Theodore, lacked the capacity to deal with the challenges of the Great Depression. Its flawed response was a deflationary policy, with cuts to wages, infrastructure projects and other public spending. Real aggregate government expenditure fell by 9 per cent at the height of the Depression, making the situation worse. It also led to the split of the parliamentary Labor Party and the destruction of the Scullin government.
As we know, in September 2008, just nine months after its election, our government was faced with its own Wall Street collapse that would quickly develop into another worldwide recession - the biggest since the Great Depression itself. The memory of the Scullin government's failure to beat the economic crisis weighed heavily upon us as we gathered around the cabinet table to face an equally daunting situation. We were determined that history would not repeat itself. Guided by Keynes and other outstanding economists, our government was able to draw upon the lessons of what went wrong in 1929 and in other recessions since.
From the comparative comfort of our strong economy, it's easy for politically and ideologically motivated critics to play down the threat presented by the financial crisis and just how exposed Australia was. The banking system was under threat, asset prices dived, global trade plummeted, companies stopped producing, households stopped spending, investment almost dried up, and business confidence took a massive blow. Eight out of 10 of our major trading partners went into recession. Unemployment rose by 175,000 within months.
This is the context in which we resolved to act.
The comparison between what we did and what the Scullin government did is, of course, informed by improvements in the policy levers at our disposal. We were not hampered by the gold standard, by the lack of access to international capital that restrained public and private borrowing and investment, nor by a weak central banking system.
We were also fortunate in that, unlike 1929, governments around the world acted largely in unison to guarantee their banking systems and stimulate their economies through public spending. Emerging powerhouse China, and also India and other developing nations with high demand for our exports, understood the force of the Keynesian argument for supporting their economies in this time of crisis.
But the fact that our government was not as helpless as Scullin's did not constitute an argument for doing nothing. Had we listened to our conservative critics and done far less, the outcome for our economy and our nation would have been far worse. We would have sunk into recession, hundreds of thousands more jobs would be gone, and more businesses would have closed their doors.
Underpinning our policy response were the principles of fiscal and monetary action to boost aggregate demand set out by Keynes: immediate stimulus measures to boost consumer spending and confidence; useful public works to create employment; lower interest rates to boost investment and spending; and concerted international action to strengthen the world financial system.
Recognising that long lead times can create a lag between the announcement and employment effect of major public works, Keynes was in favour of immediate action to boost consumer confidence and spending. This general principle provided the basis for the government's early action, which then Treasury secretary Ken Henry summed up as: ''Go early, go hard, go households.''
It is for this reason that one of our first responses to the crisis was the Economic Security Strategy, which provided $10.4 billion in targeted stimulus payments to pensioners, carers and families in December 2008, as well as immediate training places for the unemployed and additional help to first home buyers to stimulate housing construction.
The other element of fiscal policy Keynes recommended was public works to turn idle savings into useful investment - and this constituted the second part of the government's stimulus measures. In February 2009, the government began implementing a $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan to support jobs and invest in future long-term economic growth. Some $16.2 billion of this investment was for the Building the Education Revolution program, which funded building and maintenance works across nearly 24,000 projects.
Without these measures our economy would have suffered a protracted recession and about 200,000 more Australians would have been put out of work. The swift pace of the government's response was a telling factor in Australia avoiding recession, while virtually every other developed economy did not.
Another of the big lessons of the Great Depression was that action to stave off slumps must be internationally co-ordinated. Keynes devoted much of his latter life to promoting global economic stability and growth, making an important contribution to the Bretton Woods Agreement, which established the International Monetary Fund and the forerunner of today's World Bank. In a similar vein, the Australian government was a leading voice for the co-ordination of international stimulus measures, the maintenance of free trade, and the redesign and reconstruction of the world's global financial architecture in the aftermath of the crisis. Most importantly, we have been a big advocate for the overhaul of international economic decision making, in particular by championing the G20 group of nations.
[size=7]CENTRAL to Keynesian theory is that just as governments should increase spending going into a recession, once growth and prosperity have been restored, they need to restrain expenditure, budget for surpluses and reduce debt.[/size] That's why, when I announced our stimulus plans, I also articulated the path back to surplus.
This strategy hasn't and shouldn't change in light of recent events. Natural disasters at home and abroad haven't knocked Australia off its longer-term course. The fundamentals are strong and our economy is headed towards its capacity. We have low unemployment, strengthening incomes, terms of trade close to their highest sustained level in 140 years, and an unprecedented pipeline of investment. Most importantly, mining boom mark II will impose on us structural changes equal in magnitude to any we have seen before.
This economic environment underscores the importance of our fiscal commitments and strategy to return the budget to surplus. Through our cap on real spending growth and the fastest fiscal consolidation in at least 40 years, we are creating space for the significant expansion in our nation's capital base that businesses have planned.
Just as we supported demand during the global recession, we're making way for private demand in the expansion. Our fiscal strategy has been consistent from day one.
[size=6]THOSE who suggest we should be less concerned about deficit and debt wrongly point to so-called ''Keynesian'' reasons relating to their low levels in Australia compared with other developed nations. Those facts are true; Australia is in a better fiscal position.
But those facts cannot be used as excuses to open the fiscal gate and allow ill-disciplined public spending. Adopting Keynesian strategies for avoiding recession does not mean jettisoning the reform lessons that made us more prosperous over the past three decades, or ditching Keynes in the recovery.[/size]
Compared with the events of 1929 and the fate of the Scullin government, the Australian story in the aftermath of the GFC has been a more positive one, though in our patchwork economy not everybody is feeling the gains.
Almost alone among the developed economies, we escaped a deep and damaging recession, with all the added hardship that brings.
One of the fundamental reasons for this is that we had the commonsense to follow the broad prescriptions outlined by Keynes. We acted confidently, swiftly, on a broad front, and in sufficient scale to rebuild consumer and investor confidence and fill the hole left by collapsing world and domestic demand for Australia's products. We also moved to shore up the fundamentals of our financial system to keep it operating effectively.
We did these things because we learnt the lessons of the past. And we did them because Labor, like Keynes, is driven by a morality that regards unemployment, ruined businesses, foreclosed mortgages and myriad other signs of economic distress not as part of an inevitable and desirable cleansing process for the economy, but as the symptoms of a recession that should and can be avoided with the necessary will.
The same degree of commitment is necessary today, as we do the right thing by an economy approaching capacity, and get the budget back to surplus as planned.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/keynes-the-key-to-maintaining-australias-economic-health-20110408-1d7sz.html#ixzz2fr8n526k

Ziggy is one of Australias most experienced telecoms executive, he is eminently more suited to overseeing a project of this magnitude than Quigley or any of the recently sacked dolts on NBN Co's board.

Yes by all means cut back on expenditure, but not at the sake of health and education etc ffs.

Also;



Ziggy is good at running a kunt company like Telstra and maximising profit by using bullshit pricing.

Not something the NBN is trying to achieve.

-PB

Where were you in SE Asia that combined a horde of Bintang-shirt-wearing Australians and a need to speak Mandarin to communicate with locals?!

Yes he's experienced. Is that all that matters? He was an abject failure at Kodak and Telstra.

Singapore maybe but the Aussies I see there tend to be more civilised compared to Bali and Thailand. Not to mention that English is also widely spoken there :lol:

Final Tasmanian Senate seat has been confirmed today for Palmer Utd therefore most likely the Senate will now look like this:

LNP 33
ALP 26
Greens 9
Minor 8 (1x continuing Dem Lab, 1x Lib Dems, 3x Palmer, 1x Family First, 1x Xenophon, 1x Motoring)[/quote]

The only likely change now would be for ALP and Palmer to lose seats to Greens and Sports in WA.

With a total of 76 meaning it takes 39 for a majority... LNP will need to secure 6 votes to pass legislation:
- Greens or ALP can support LNP to pass any legislation
- Any combination of 6 minor party candidates out of 8

Palmer Party now will basically hold half-the-balance of power but would still need to take 3 effectively independent candidates with them (Motoring, Lib Dems are likely to support any policy except where it increases taxes, while Family First will support anything that doesn't infringe on Christian values... Libs should comfortably have 3 friends there meaning PUP is basically the balance of power).

What sorts of services would you cut back on then?