http://www.zdnet.com/libs-kick-nbn-policy-own-goal-but-can-labor-convert-7000013781/
My first thought while reading the Coalition's national broadband network (NBN) election policy channelled that bon mot about pigs and lipstick, but the second was more instructive. That is: By offering a policy that is both better than its last election policy and far more expensive, the party of "no" has conclusively proved that its long-standing push for austerity is incompatible with the design goals of a modern NBN.
The Coalition rolled out the red carpet for its new NBN policy — but is it just lipstick on a pig? (Image: David Braue/ZDNet)
In other words, you get what you pay for, and you have to pay for what you want to get.
The Coalition plan is a concession to the reality of telecommunications that both parties had years ago ignored, but which Labor accepted first when it moved from its $4.7 billion fibre-to-the-node (FttN) posture to its $43 billion (subsequently revised to $37.4 billion) fibre-to-the-premises (FttP) commitment.
Compared to this investment, the Coalition's insistence during the 2010 election that around $5 billion worth of broadband band-aids would solve our problems seemed downright foolish. After all, building a network like this is expensive, complicated stuff. By committing six times as much this time around, the Coalition has finally accepted this — and framed the NBN discussion in more realistic terms.
It has also, I should add, just invalidated six years of its own arguments — that Labor was spending too much on its NBN, and that it could actually be completed for the price of a few packs of Hubba Bubba and some doughnuts to keep the workers motivated.
That's just so much water under the bridge, apparently: To get your vote, the new Coalition is ready to spend up big on a brand spanking old network that will, it solemnly swears, deliver anywhere from one quarter to one half the speed of Labor's NBN possibly two years earlier and for a similar cost.
But wait — there's more!
