:-S The events happened under Rudd's tenure didn't they?

The argument is pointless and I'm done with it, because he keeps bringing up local area network quality ethernet cables as some kind of justification for a FTTN connection that doesn't use that sort of copper wiring anyway.

and was doing what Abbott largely wanted on boats.

Madness.

TIL: Telling abbott to fuck off was "largely what he wanted".

Stolen generation was decades ago but that didn't stop Howard etc from apologizing.

-PB

Actually yes. Once the boat went public they couldn't lose face. But actually received two boats back before that.

Have you got a source for that?

Yes.
http://m.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/some-stumbles-but-boats-are-stopping/story-e6frg6z6-1226759294151

Telstra's copper is 'nearly beyond repair' and 'an absolute disgrace': union


A temporary fix to Telstra's copper as seen by field staff in NSW's Illawarra region. Photo: CEPU

The union representing Telstra field staff says the telco's copper-wire network is "beyond repair" and "an absolute disgrace", casting new doubts over the federal government's plans to use it to deliver faster broadband in its mixed-technology national broadband network (NBN).

The comments follow assertions from Telstra on Monday that the century-old copper network is not ageing. Then, in response to a report by Fairfax Media, Telstra's wholesale division managing director, Stuart Lee, denied the copper asset had deteriorated.
Shane Murphy, assistant secretary of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union's New South Wales branch, said the network was nearly beyond repair.

"Replacing the broken bit right now would be [just about] replacing the [whole] network," he said.

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"The network is an absolute disgrace," Mr Murphy added. "It's full of plastic bags [and] ring-barked cables."

The union has provided photographs that appear to show a number of Telstra pits in the Illawara region, in NSW, where recycled plastic bottles and bags have been used to insulate wires. Photos also show tangled wires, wires submerged in water and wet even when inside the plastic shieds.

Mr Lee has said the copper network was fixed as required.

"It's like grandfather's axe; It's had five new handles and three new heads. When it breaks, we replace the broken bit. So it's much the same as it always has been and always will be," Mr Lee said.

Mr Murphy described Mr Lee's comments as "an absolute bollock".

"It's doesn't matter which capital city of the country you live in, or country town, as soon as they get a dosage of rain, up goes the amount of outages of customer services or internet faults. And that is due to the state of the Telstra network. It is nearly beyond repair."

On Wednesday, a Telstra spokeswoman told Fairfax Media the company put temporary fixes in place "from time to time" to ensure continuity of service until a permanent repair was available.

"How many [temporary fixes] are in place and techniques used will differ at different times and circumstances," the spokeswoman said.

The age of the copper network varied "greatly", the spokeswoman added.

"But with the rolling remediation program we have in place to restore and replace copper it would rarely be older than 30 years."

Good for 'another 100' years

Mr Murphy said Telstra would need to invest "millions and millions" of dollars to bring the copper network up to scratch to survive the next 20 years. This was despite Telstra chief executive officer David Thodey saying in June that the network would "keep going for another 100" years.

"The union finds it alarming that the CEO or anyone within Telstra believes the copper network is in shape to last another 100 years," Mr Murphy said.

Mr Murphy said the network was in a bad state because Telstra field staff were measured on the number of jobs they did each day and not on the quality of the work.

"Telstra over the last five to ten years since privatisation has driven a system of as many jobs per day and pushing the guys to the next job at the expense of quality customer service," Mr Murphy said.

"The [field staff] are not left with any amount of time to sit on the job and fix the job properly. They are simply band-aiding the customers' repair and being pushed to the next job. And managers' bonuses are being based on the amount of jobs workers are doing per day."

But Telstra's spokeswoman disputed this, saying quality workmanship was measured as well as quantity.

Mr Lee's comments come as Telstra prepares to renegotiate its $11 billion national broadband network deal with the Coalition government, which wants to make use of the copper in its fibre-to-the-node rollout for 71 per cent of premises. The node-based network uses up to several hundred metres of existing copper wires running from the local node to each premise.

NBN Co's executive chairman, Dr Switkowski, told the Communications and Environment Senate estimates committee on Tuesday night he was confident Telstra's copper network "continues to perform robustly". He noted that fault rates were now higher than in the last decade because of rain. Copper faults increase after rain.

However, there were already millions of people accessing ADSL broadband services through Telstra's customer access network, as the copper network is known, Dr Switkowski said.

"That suggests to me the network is robust still and the concerns that are expressed about ... the network [that it] may not be the basis for the next generation broadband platform, I think, are misinformed," Dr Switkowski said.

Labor Senator Kate Lundy asked if NBN Co would get access to accurate data about the condition and quality of Telstra's network before it re-enters negotiations or decides whether to ditch Labor's plan of rolling out fibre-to-the-home for 93 per cent of premises in favour of rolling out fibre-to-the-node for 73 per cent.

"If we don't have data in detail by the time of the drafting of the review then assumptions will be made ... it is the task of one of the advisory groups to do that," Dr Switkowski replied.

NBN Co's new chief operating officer, Greg Adcock, confirmed at the hearing that NBN Co would test parts of Telstra's copper underground network before it made any definitive moves to a fibre-to-the-node design.

"The current thinking is that there would be testing done. Whether it informs the strategic review or whether the strategic review makes some assumptions to be then tested, I think that is the way we would frame it at this point," Mr Adcock said.

The federal government will either buy the network or lease it. Buying it would likely require the government-owned NBN Co to maintain the network, while leasing it could potentially see that left to Telstra.

The state of Australia's copper network has long been a focus because critics say that it has deteriorated and might not provide the speed of 100 megabits per second the Coalition eventually wants to deliver over it, with technologies like VDSL2 vectoring.

The Coalition has promised to replace any copper that doesn't achieve the speeds promised but critics say the true state of the copper network is not known, and its costly replacement could blowout the Coalition's NBN costings.

With Lucy Battersby

Link to premium subscription article so it can't be verified. Good job.

So what you're saying is that once the boats being turned back went public they couldn't lose face. But it's gone public so they've lost face. Good ol' fashioned Catch 22 you've written there.

I love it when you do this, throwing out a statement which in itself is a strawman.

I'd love to hear your assessment of the job Abbott has done so far, Batfink.

The response is difficult and precarious. But how do you handle a scenario like that? Get on your knees and grovel for forgiveness? If he did that people would be calling him soft and too readily willing to take it up the arse from Indonesia. Point out that Indonesia were caught spying on us in the past? If he did that he'd be accused of potentially inflaming the scenario.

It's a bit of a no-win position to be in.

It's not a case of simply adding more wires, there's only so fast a copper wire can transport a signal. And it's significantly slower than fibreoptics.

The argument is pointless and I'm done with it, because he keeps bringing up local area network quality ethernet cables as some kind of justification for a FTTN connection that doesn't use that sort of copper wiring anyway.

I find that very hard to believe considering that even high grade transceivers will have signal loss at anything above 100m, once again, seen it first hand, I work with this stuff day in day out.

Also once again, not a liable solution for something like NBN where average cable runs back to exchanges are in values of kilometers, not <100m.

-PB

well i must be lying then.....[-( been cabling as a specialised data specialist for over 25 years.....and the runs from the nodes are designed to be far less.....

listen FTTP is a better solution...no doubt...politically and financially that a different story.....

Qld cops to be protected from civil action
Queensland police officers who injure civilians or damage property while on duty will be protected from legal action by their victims under a proposed law change.

Victims would instead have to sue the state in a move Premier Campbell Newman said would allow officers to "get on with the job of protecting our community" without fear of action if they make a mistake.

The changes introduced in the Public Service and Other Legislation (Civil Liability) Amendment Bill would allow the state to recover money from individual officers if they were found to have acted "other than in good faith and with gross negligence".

"In the often highly complex situations they (police) respond to, and despite performing their roles professionally and in good faith, the nature of their business means there are occasional incidents that cause injury to people or damage to property," Mr Newman told parliament as he tabled the bill on Tuesday night.

"The potential consequences that flow to the individual officer as a result of these unfortunate occurrences - the threat of civil liability - place unnecessary pressure on officers and has the potential to impact decision making, especially in high-pressure, operational situations.

"This can ultimately reduce the level of service that police are willing and able to provide to our community."
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/19927453/qld-cops-to-be-protected-from-civil-action/

Liberal strategist Mark Textor under fire for comparing Indonesian foreign minister to porn star

Liberal Party campaign strategist Mark Textor is under fire for statements he made yesterday on Twitter, criticising Indonesia's response to the phone tapping revelations.

In one of a series of comments - that have since been deleted - Mr Textor said: "Apology demanded from Australia by a bloke who looks like a 1970's Pilipino [sic] porn star and has ethics to match".

He appeared to be referring to Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa, though that was not confirmed by Mr Textor.

The Liberal pollster also said that no Indonesian had been bombed in Australia, a comment that was accompanied by photos of the Bali bombers.

His comments, which come as the damaging standoff over the allegations drags on, made the front page of Indonesian news website Kompass.

Mr Textor, who touts himself as being in the Prime Minister's inner circle and whose market research firm CrosbyTextor has been associated with the Liberal Party for many years, declined to comment to the ABC this morning.

there are two main ratings of Fibre an copper, there is the bandwidth measured in hertz and the speed which is measured in bits, here are some of the basic specs

With regards the Abbott refusal to apologize:

C'mon guys, I think you're being a tad unreasonable. Do you want him to put his hand up and apologize for something done by the previous government? Something he wasn't responsible for? Hell, I'd rather a PM who stood up for something instead of Kevin who would probably have sucked Bangbang I'vegotayoyo off again.

I think its unfair to give him a free pass, he didn't stop it from happening. For sure he would have known about it.

I could be mistaken but isn't it the other way around? Bandwidth is measured in bits and speed is indicated in hertz - hertz being the number of wave cycles completed in a second.

Point is, you can't simply keep adding copper wires and expecting it to go faster, it has a limited capacity in the physical conductivity of the copper comparative to the capacity of the fibre optics. Copper's conductivity is roughly 66% comparative to the speed of light - or fibre optic exchange (roughly 3.0x10^9 m/s)

Intelligence & Diplomatic matters are handled on a bi-partisan basis without national politics being brought into it.