Thanks for the fight Senator Conroy :-D

[freakiness]

Thanks for my NBN and thanks for splitting the wholesale from retail!

http://www.commsday.com/commsday-australasia/conroy-quits-full-industry-reaction

CONROY QUITS: Full industry reaction Posted on: Wednesday, 26th  June 2013

Stephen Conroy’s reign as the most powerful communications minister in Australian history has come to an end with his resignation following the accession of Kevin Rudd to the prime ministership last night.

Conroy served as the communications minister since the election of the ALP to power in December 2007, emerging as a key backer of Julia Gillard when she took over the leadership of the ALP in 2010.

In his six year reign as minister he has proven the most powerful holder of that position in history: shepherding the government to make a $40 billion plus public investment in fixed broadband while enacting legislation and financial inducements to force a historic separation of incumbent operator Telstra. Such has been the influence of his policy that it has been largely adopted in principle by a Federal opposition previously disdainful of a government role in broadband provision.

Even from opposition prior to 2007 he proved influential, adopting the broad outlines of a Telstra-proposed public/private collaboration on fixed network investment and finding his policy partly adopted by the Coalition government at the time.

Valedictories for Conroy’s record as minister were mixed last night.

TURNBULL RESPONDS: Shadow communications minister and former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull told CommsDay: “I have enjoyed my occasional debates with Stephen Conroy. However I wish that he had not committed Australia to a National Broadband project without any cost benefit analysis, without any cap or limit on costs – in short I wish he hadn’t written the largest blank cheque in our country’s history.”

“I am pleased however that he was not able to succeed in regulating the content of our newspapers but puzzled as to why after two and a half years he has not been able to present the legislation which would constitute his “new deal” on anti-siphoning which he announced in late 2010.”

“Vendors of men’s undergarments will mourn his resignation as telecom executives no longer buy red underpants to put on their heads as a precondition of having an audience with the minister.”

DICTATOR? Vocus Communications CEO James Spenceley, a critic of the NBN FTTH plan in 2010, said “Conroy’s legacy is one of lack of engagement, lack of understanding and lack of desire to work with, rather than dictate to the industry. His arrogance will not be missed by an industry than can hopefully now move forward together in conjunction with policy makers.”

But former Pipe Networks CEO and current SubPartners principal Bevan Slattery, who also was highly critical of the NBN policy, was more conciliatory. Conroy was “visionary, passionate, driven, fearless and one tough bastard who always gave as good as he got.  Despite the many blues we have had in the early years, I have grown to have a tremendous amount of respect for both the man and the politician.  The fact that both sides of politics are talking about a National Broadband Network is his major legacy, though I really hope both sides of politics support some of the key principles of the Digital Economy policy launched last month.”

Vodafone Australia was also praising of the minister. A spokesperson said “Senator Conroy has played a pivotal role in solving long-standing structural problems in the industry and has laid the foundations for continued telecommunications reform in this country. His courageous pursuit of change for Australian consumers has begun a shift that will change the telecommunications industry for the better.”

RIGHT TIME TO LEAVE: Informa analyst Tony Brown thinks the timing was right for Conroy to quit the position. “In some ways this is the perfect ending for Conroy, he can now watch from the sidelines as the Coalition—if they win the election—(take over) and criticise them for dismantling his perfect NBN solution—one that he no longer has to deliver.”

“However, in some ways Conroy’s legacy is now entwined with how successful Malcolm Turnbull is in delivering an FTTN-based NBN, if Turnbull can’t deliver an FTTN-based NBN then the conclusion will probably be reached that a nationwide FTTH network was a bridge too far anyway.”

“For all his faults Conroy has been a real warrior in his job, he has created a lot of enemies but at the same time pushed the telecoms landscape into a direction which was unimaginable not that long ago.”

BIGGEST CRITIC PRAISES CONROY: Even arguably Conroy’s most strident critic, former ALP comms advisor and consultant Kevin Morgan, praised his energy as a minister. “Though I disagreed massively about Senator Conroy’s stance on policy, as a fellow long time member of the Australian labour movement one could never doubt his commitment. His integrity and commitment is confirmed by his decision to stand down with Rudd’s return. It’s just a shame such a good Labor man should have nailed his colours to such a poorly thought out policy. Despite his NBN policy, had other ministers pursued their responsibilities with the same energy Labor wouldn’t be in the mess they are in today. I can only wish him the best.”

Another critic, economist and academic Henry Ergas, was less generous. “There is no doubt that he reshaped Australian telecommunications. Unfortunately, his complete disregard for sensible and indeed, proper policy process, extraordinary hubris, lack of clear principle and limited grasp of the substance meant that changes were invariably poorly designed, incompetently implemented and hence unlikely to be enduring. In instance after instance—the process that led to the NBN, the Australia Network tender, the media reforms—he has left a mess for his successors to clean up. He will be regarded as a minister whose grasp always fell far short of his reach.”

INTERNATIONAL RESPECT: One of Conroy’s strongest supporters, industry advocate Paul Budde, also praised his energies. “The achievements of this Minister have been nothing less than remarkable. This has been recognised internationally with the several awards that he has received for his vision and his work on the NBN and his appointment as a Commissioner of UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development. When I met Stephen Conroy for the first time in 2005 in Adelaide—where he attended a conference where I was speaking—he came to me afterwards and indicated his interest and support for the concept of fast broadband for its social and economic benefits.

“We continued our discussions and as a result of his vision and hard work the country now is building a National Broadband Network and with contracts in place for NBN connections for approximately half of the population, the future of the NBN is safe. The Coalition has also warmed to the plan and there is now bipartisan support for the NBN. This in itself is an enormous achievement.”

“Obviously there is nobody in the ALP who is as knowledgeable on the NBN as Stephen Conroy and it will be interesting to see who will be taking over his position. On the positive side however, the NBN is now so far advanced that this not a critical issue anymore, the NBN can stand on its own legs. Nevertheless, the NBN being the Government’s flagship achievement, it will play a key role in the election campaign so the position of the new Minister for Broadband will remain a critical one for the ALP. The emphasis now however will have to be on somebody with excellent communications skills to promote the benefits of the NBN to the voters.”

PRAISE FROM FORMER STAFFER: Former Conroy press secretary and current Alcatel Lucent executive Tim Marshall—also a former editor of this publication—remembers his time with the minister fondly. “Australian telecommunications is unlikely to see a force like him. Remember when he took this portfolio in Opposition, Stephen was maybe the first to take it really seriously, to raise it as a pillar portfolio. He also listened. His work in government was about meaningful change, structural change, fixing past mistakes and incomplete vision. The NBN isn’t about technology, which will always evolve, its about equity and stability. The NBN is a true reform in the national interest, and I think it will be a fine legacy.”

Another industry executive with extensive experience of working with Conroy as a lobbyist, Macquarie Telecom executive Matt Healy, concurred. “Senator Conroy has played a pivotal role in solving long-standing structural problems in the industry and has laid the foundations for continued telecommunications reform in this country. His courageous pursuit of change for Australian consumers has begun a shift that will change the telecommunications industry for the better.”

Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton was another with kind words for the minister’s personal industry. “I have had the opportunity to observe in action every Australian Comms Minister since Tony Staley. Stephen Conroy has, I believe, shown greater drive and courage than any of those predecessors. Of course our views differed on specific issues, plenty of them. But Stephen has genuine passion for the portfolio and its pivotal importance to Australia. He made the effort necessary to be across the detail and able to argue the substance. Forget for a moment the politics of the NBN debate. Stephen’s unwavering commitment to give Australia a broadband-based platform for our nation’s future economic competitiveness will be an enduring and worthy legacy.”     

Grahame Lynch

[not_an_eloi]

keep the fight right up them flamin' liberals

[monman12]

As Turnbull writes: ".....However I wish that he had not committed Australia to a National Broadband project without any cost benefit analysis, without any cap or limit on costs – in short I wish he hadn’t written the largest blank cheque in our country’s history.”

“I am pleased however that he was not able to succeed in regulating the content of our newspapers but puzzled as to why after two and a half years he has not been able to present the legislation which would constitute his “new deal” on anti-siphoning which he announced in late 2010.”

Myself I will say no thanks Conroy, mainly because he initiated a (good) communication system that legislated  for no competition, including shutting down 2 perfectly good HFC (cable) networks, and decommissioning a copper one.

A State owned monopoly communication system protected from competition by law, that rings a bell!

"Lenin’s essential claim was that state-monopoly capitalism provided the necessary technical conditions for the advance to socialism."

[freakiness]

On that we disagree. A country the size and population of Australia relies on Government intervention to build our infrastructure and that is not a bad thing.

There comes a time for replacement rather than repair and the time is now.

[freakiness]

Snippet of Renai's article, I too have grown to like Senator Conroy.

http://delimiter.com.au/2013/06/27/vale-stephen-conroy-australias-greatest-ever-communications-minis...

opinion For all his flaws and missteps, Stephen Conroy has been an incredible reformer and revolutionary force for change in Australia’s technology sector over most of the past decade. He will ultimately be remembered as Australia’s greatest ever Communications Minister; a visionary who almost single-handedly drove the creation of the National Broadband Network.

If you were following Australian politics at all last night, you would very likely have been preoccupied with the fate of the major actors in the Federal arena. You would have gasped as Kevin Rudd’s victory over Julia Gillard for the Prime Ministership was announced. You would have admired Gillard’s iron stoicism in defeat and Wayne Swan’s cheery determination to continue on. You would have had mixed feelings at seeing a fairly grim Rudd once again take up the leadership mantle, almost three years to the day after it was torn from him.

Unless you were specifically keeping an eye out for it, as I was, you probably didn’t pay too much attention to some of the collateral damage coming out of this struggle of the titans. Certainly the television networks and online commentators last night gave scant airtime to considering the serious implications of some of the ripples which Rudd’s massive wave of change caused.

This morning i want to give just one of those ripples the attention that it’s due. I speak, of course, of the quiet and dignified resignation last night of Senator Stephen Conroy from the post of Leader of the Senate and, more importantly for Australia’s technology sector, from the role of Communications Minister.

Conroy’s resignation came as no real surprise to those of us who track the Victorian Senator closely.

Of course, there is the obvious fact that Conroy, a long-time Gillard supporter who has made his feelings about Rudd’s mismanagement of the Cabinet in his first tenure as Prime Minister very plain, had already earlier this week stated that he would be very unlikely to serve in a new Rudd cabinet. Along with Wayne Swan, Conroy was expected to be one of the first senior Gillard supporters to depart the sinking ship, in the event of a successful Rudd challenge. And, true to his word (a rarity in politics), he fell on his sword minutes after Rudd’s victory was announced.

However, it’s also true that there has been a certain weariness around Conroy’s performance in his portfolio for much of the past year, and for good reason. There are quite a few in the sector who had suspected that Conroy would make way for a new Minister and seek the back bench following the upcoming Federal Election — perhaps even if Labor was successful in retaining government.

The reason for Conroy’s weariness is very apparent to those who have followed events in the telecommunications portfolio over the past half-decade since Labor first came to power.

If you think about the most important portfolios in Federal Government politics, it’s normally areas such as Treasury, Finance, Defence, Immigration, Education, Welfare and Health which come to mind. These are the areas which normally require the closest oversight by Ministers; they are big-spending portfolios where ideological differences exist between the various parties, and where politicking is common. It is these areas which politicians usually aspire to Ministership in.

Prior to Conroy’s ascension to the Communications Ministership in November 2007, the Communications portfolio was not a particularly important one. Previous ministers in the portfolio — such as Helen Coonan and Richard Alston — primarily oversaw regulatory changes in the area which could be best described as ‘tweaking’. For decades, Australian governments have not invested directly in telecommunications, preferring instead to gradually deregulate the sector and slowly progress the privatisation of former government monopoly Telstra, stimulating competition along the way.

Conroy’s ascension to the Communications Ministership in 2007 changed all this and vaulted the communications portfolio into one of the nation’s most important and the position of Communications Minister into a key senior Cabinet post.

As I wrote at the time, the Senator had realised what very few others in politics then understood; that the problem of broadband blackspots and the gridlock created by the Howard Government’s abject failure to structurally separate Telstra’s wholesale and retail operations (as other countries such as the UK were in the process of doing with their own incumbent telcos) had left a massive opportunity open for a progressive Labor administration to take direct action in the sector. And Conroy also proved himself politically astute at the time; as shortly before his own ascension to the Prime Ministership, Conroy was able to persuade the then-Opposition Leader Rudd of the importance of unprecedented government intervention in the sector.

It must be said that Conroy bungled his first several years as Communications Minister, and wasted much of this opportunity — as new Ministers often do, before they get a grip on their portfolios.

The first, $4.7 billion plan to upgrade Telstra’s copper telecommunications network with fibre to the node broadband technology in partnership with industry was a hopelessly naive plan which eventually imploded in Conroy’s face due to a combination of factors; Telstra’s hostile leadership led by imported US executive Sol Trujillo and his cadre of ‘amigos’, as well as the lack of interest by foreign investors in getting their feet wet in the regulatory quagmire of Australia’s telecommunications sector, and the inability of Telstra’s rivals (despite their own deep pockets) to present a truly viable co-investment plan to deal with its monopolistic nature.

Then too, Conroy also at the time fell massively foul of one of the smallest aspects of the Rudd Government’s telecommunications policy which conservative religious elements were successful at sneaking into Labor’s platform shortly before Rudd took power in November 2007; its hugely unpopular mandatory Internet filter project.

It has long been suspected that Conroy did not personally support this policy and that the Minister would have abandoned it quickly if he had the choice, as he was eventually able to late last year after largely neutralising it as an election issue back in 2010. I guess we’ll find out for sure if Conroy ever publishes a biography. However, of course Conroy did not have the choice, and Rudd’s own somewhat socially conservative background coupled with the Prime Minister’s incredibly stubborn nature placed Conroy in the unfortunately position as poster child for the filter; a position which would continually see the Senator ridiculed in public over the first several years of his Ministership.

To be honest, the filter issue still dogs Conroy, and unfortunately it will be one of the defining policies he will be remembered for in his tenure as Communications Minister. You can see this in the approbrium heaped on the Senator last night as his resignation was made public. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” wrote one commenter on Delimiter last night. “Conroy was the worst and the most incompetent Communications Minister of all times,” wrote another. And of course, it is unlikely that Conroy will ever live down the ignominy of being named “Internet villain of the year” at the UK’s Internet industry awards in June 2009, at the height of the public’s disapproval of the Internet filter policy.

To say that this is unfortunate is a collossal understatement. For Conroy’s accomplishments in the Communications portfolio since he found his feet in it in early 2009 are truly remarkable, far outshadowing his filter missteps and and placing him in a small elite of Australian politicians who have made huge impacts on the industries which they oversee, as well as a tiny group of Australian politicians who have truly understood technology and the Internet.

[monman12]

On that we disagree. It is not open to interpretation because the NBN is  a State owned monopoly communication system protected from competition by law, and if Conroy had manged to get his way he would have banned mobile Internet use, thankfully the ACCC  told him to "go away" That is socialism.

"A country the size and population of Australia relies on Government intervention to build our infrastructure and that is not a bad thing." No it is not, but when there is a public organisation that could install and run the network at no cost to the taxpayer (Telstra) then later Optus and Elders in a joint venture offer  that was vetoed by Conroy (government intervention?), one has to wonder at politics and business.

As for relying on government for infrastructure, perhaps you might wonder how Victoria has managed to have the desalination plant built by private enterprise, costing 20 billion dollars over 30 years, and it is finished and running.

Fibre communications are the ultimate, but governments can not run businesses efficiently (often the country)

[lightningdance]

This appalling dimwit has gone & we can  thank Rudd for that, whether we will be able to thank Rudd for anything else remains to be seen.

The most incompetent politician in Australia has been removed from a very important portfolio before he could make another assault on our freedoms  & freedom of the press.

He will not be missed.

"Lenin’s essential claim was that state-monopoly capitalism provided the necessary technical conditions for the advance to socialism."

This is a taste of what this witless fool was trying to impose on us all.