Reading around the lines of yesterday’s NBN debate shows just how important the NBN has become in the Australian political landscape.
Image: Gavin St. Ours
Malcolm Turnbull is on an absolute NBN blitz at the moment, turning up and talking up his NBN proposals as often as is physically possible. As I write this, he’s a couple of hours away from appearing at the University Of New England (trivia: It’s where I got my degree) in Armidale. That’ll be an interesting event that I unfortunately won’t be able to watch, but you should be able to here at 3pm AEST. Yesterday, Turnbull he debated Alan Kohler at a Business Spectator event.
I wasn’t invited (shakes tiny fist), but I watched it unfold remotely via social media. As it did, I was struck by the realisation that the NBN is the one bit of technology policy that’s made a serious dent in the Australian political psyche.
Nothing else IT related has ever come close. Netalert and the associated filtering came in under the Howard government, and the numbers who cared were so minimal that the project was shelved. Stephen Conroy had his own now-mostly-defunct filtering vision that did raise some eyebrows in technical circles, but not at all beyond that as an actual election issue.
The NBN is different, and the easiest way to see how that’s true is by looking at the Coalition’s attack vectors on it. At first it was completely unnecessary, something that Tony Abbott would bulldoze in favour of putting the money in roads. It was absolutely a white elephant, something we didn’t need in any way shape or form. When it became apparent that there were votes in it, then the Coalition policy appeared, favouring FTTN.
A quick plug in the midst of all of this; I’ve written the September 2013 NBN cover story for PC & Tech Authority, and I’d highly advise you go and read it, as I’ve boiled down the duelling Labor/Liberal FTTP and FTTN proposals without much of the political rhetoric. Plus, you know, I’m pretty happy with how the feature turned out, and I enjoy eating food and all that.
At yesterday’s event, Malcolm Turnbull was still spruiking the official FTTN vision, but with a lot of mention of FTTP along the way. The Coalition model was always a mixed-mode one, but I’d say that someone’s picked up on the fact that people are getting more informed about the differences between the two, and as such it’s become something of a deflating tactic on Turnbull’s part.
If he can make the Coalition NBN proposal and the Labor one seem practically identical save for costings, then he can score votes, which are going to be critical in the upcoming election. That’s undoubtedly the idea behind the repetition of the $90 billion costing claim that’s also part of his current spiel, because the projected numbers between the current FTTP and FTTN proposals are arguably a bit too close to make for good political capital. Turn it into a $60 billion difference, and you’re talking votes.
That’s called politics. To be fair, it’s exactly what happens on the other side of the fence as well. To take a different example, both sides of politics have what I personally feel are abhorrent refugee policies on the table, and for one very simple reason. They figure they can get votes that way from the more rabidly (and regrettably) xenophobic members of the Australian population. It’s an issue that’s worth political capital — and so is the NBN.
The issue of the NBN was clearly a deciding factor in the deadlock that the then Gillard-led Labor goverment used to secure a balance of power at the conclusion of the previous election, but that was a matter of political horse trading. When was the last time that a technology issue got (or at least had the appearance of getting) large scale votes from the general public? Pretty much never before in Australia’s history. As we shift closer and closer to election date, I’m sure other issues will come to the fore, but it appears that election 2013’s fight will be significantly about the NBN itself.