Katter pays tribute to the "no vote" NBN

By Ry Crozier on Sep 7, 2010 6:42 AM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Project was "great" for Australians.

Independent MP Bob Katter has paid tribute to Federal Labor for pursuing the National Broadband Network even though there were "no votes in it for them".

Katter's comments on the ABC's Q&A program came on the eve of an expected decision on Australia's political future by the three independents today.

Breaking news: Katter supports Coalition despite believing NBN is the better broadband policy.

The member for Kennedy accused both sides of Federal politics of trying to buy the votes of the independents, citing the ALP's offer of $340 million to Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie and the Coalition's $1 billion to re-develop Royal Hobart Hospital in return for his support.

Wilkie sided with Labor last week.

Katter said that although the vote-buying attempts started "within one week of finishing the election... there was a Government there for a little tiny while that did not go out buying votes [of other politicians or the public]".

"I have to pay a very great tribute to the Rudd Government because, for the first time in 20 years, I saw a Government [pursue] the broadband rollout, the national energy grid rollout," Katter said.

"There's no votes in either of those things.

"They [the projects] are a good thing for this country, a great thing for this country, and they [the Government] undertook both those things knowing there were no votes in it for them [Labor].

"I'm paying them a very fine compliment. They deserve that compliment," he said.

The big question last night was on Australia's political future and whether Katter had reached an agreement on a 20-point wish list of demands he had provided to both sides last week.

It did not appear the NBN alone would be enough to secure Katter nor the other independents' votes.

"Are there three votes [in projects like NBN for Labor]?" program host Tony Jones asked Katter, referring to the crucial support of the independents to form Government.

"No," Katter responded.

Katter said he hadn't made a decision at the time of the show but thought he'd "certainly be in a position to make a decision" today.

"Both sides have had their chances and they'll have to go on what they've put forward [to me]," he said.

A report by the Sydney Morning Herald has rumoured the other independents would also announce who they will back into Government today.

Katter pays tribute to the "no vote" NBN

25 comments in this discussion

"johnpro2 wrote: @deeteego to Vezayar And this isn't trolling how? Correct ..a new join and a first post. The saying 'don't feed the troll' might be applicable..? Jp It worked, didn't it?"

By deteego

Tags

bob katter, kennedy, nbn, vote, government, labour, coalition, independents, decision, abc, qa, nbn, broadband

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Comments: 25

Rossyduck Sep 7, 2010 8:49 AM	Bob, Labour have advertised NBN as one of the planks of their election promise. They certainly beleive there are lots of votes in it. So does NBN Co, they strategically announced 1G service (of no real consequence other thna publicity) and we had Quigly involving him self with the election campaign in an unheard speach full of half truths. I cannot see how saddlign us with an uneceesary $40 billion debt - when it could be $10 - 15 billion, wiping out te greenfields industry by nationalising it and putting Australian manufactuers who have been exporting at a global disadvantage though NBN Co procurement practises can benefit all Australians. Maybe a couple of the multinationals we are competing aGAINST .....
EMwyres Sep 7, 2010 9:20 AM	The NBN was certainly a factor in how I voted - I voted for a future where the NBN promotes economic activity to ensure my daughter lives in a world where Australia isn't seen as a laughing stock for being the only developed nation on the planet without the kind of network it promises... And I voted neither Labor or Coalition...
advocate Sep 7, 2010 9:41 AM	Interesting that Katter states that there were no votes in it for Labor by announcing the NBN, where as many in this and other tech forums have stated that's exactly why they did vote Labor both before and after the election. The Coalition stated before the election they would dissolve the NBN Co and stop the build, you can also assume therefore many voted for the Coalition because of this policy. There is no clear mandate from the Australian public to build the NBN.
waterytowers Sep 7, 2010 9:50 AM	@advocate I think that a vote for the greens was a vote for the NBN without a filter. Since the greens were the big winners in this election, I would say that qualifies as a desire by the public to build the NBN. It also means people want something done on climate change.
MerariSchroeder Sep 7, 2010 9:51 AM	"and they [the Government] undertook both those things knowing there were no votes in it for them [Labor]" Oh Bob, isn't Labor just the picture perfect scene... They burnt down houses (pink batts) (remember that pop star politician they had?), and wasted money on school halls claiming an education revolution!?. It was the monster that is the NBN which Labor have used to distract the public from their poor term in government, a term so bad that they had to switch leaders! The NBN was central to their election platform and they have done nothing but lie to the Australian people about the plan. The plan that they promised would only cost $4.7bn at the last election and ballooned to $43bn. They have consistently endeavored to make NBN look like magic, by promising revolutionary new ideas like tele-medicine which is a pipe dream, it does not improve on any existing infrastructure to perform surgery, deliver medicine, take XRays, or deliver any meaningful medicinal administration. Not to mention, the performance which mostly hinges on our poor international bandwidth. And the internet filter, which the Chinese government must have done well to convince Kevin Rudd of its' citizen controlling glory. We will likely get the NBN, if we do we will enjoy the connectivity and speed. But we will look back and wonder how much better it could have been, fully mobile, without a huge debt, without high subscriptions costs and without the eroding market share to wireless technologies (LTE), taking revenue away from the public purse - NBNCo. I hope Bob makes the right choice. It certainly doesn't look that way. Look through the political spin Bob, it's what us voters have to do every day.
Ace Sep 7, 2010 10:32 AM	Bob is right that the NBN was probably more of a negative election policy than a positive one. I would not be suprised to find that almost 100% of non-IT industry (and clearly 50% of the IT industry) have no clue of what the NBN can offer, or how it could make their day any better. For most it was probably some elitist thing that is going cost $43billion. Yet Labor did not attempt to water it down at all. (@advocate, I can assure you that 'this and other tech forums' make up exactly a gnats poo of the votes. People don't even understand or care about the filter threat let alone a concept like the NBN). While Socialist Daily rants like @Merari's are quite amusing, it is a worry that some people actually believe that stuff!
Swanni Sep 7, 2010 10:45 AM	The NBN was a key factor in the way I voted. I wanted my children to be able to use technology in a sustainable way - what my country can afford. I would love every one in Australia to 1000Gbit to their homes, and every where else for that matter. But it just costs too much. That's why the $16B that has been wasted so far is out of a contingency fund, away from parlimentary scruntiny. Very sneaky. Some would say crimminal and corrupt.
singo79 Sep 7, 2010 11:21 AM	@Swanni - I totally agree with you, for I too voted for Labor in order for my children and the children of this country to prosper. For to long we have been a backwater in competition and speeds surrounding broadband. For a developed nation such as ours it is appalling to see that the industry is basically going nowhere in terms of next-gen infrastructure installation and investment. I don't agree with earlier comments made in which people believe that the announcement of the NBN offering 1Gbps speeds over the original planned speeds of 100Mbps as a political ploy. However I believe that it was a necessary announcement to silence all of the negative commentators out there claiming that the network would be out of date before it was completed. People were using the NBN's 100Mbps speed against it saying that it was going to be out of date by the time it was rolled out and that we would all have to foot an even larger cost to upgrade to 1Gbps to keep up with the rest of the developed world. This announcement needed to be made in order to silence those who were simply put, wrong! The NBN will be able to offer speeds of 1Gbps at no additional cost, unlike South Korea who are currently paying to upgrade their NBN from 100Mbps to 1Gbps. The timing of the announcement was paramount, for it was a big problem hanging over the NBN's head of being constrained to 100Mbps and being an additional cost to upgrade to 1Gbps. People were using this against the NBNCo and the Labor Party, therefor it had to be announced when it was in order to give all Australians and Australian businesses the correct information in order for people to vote appropriately. Only time will tell who gets over the line, but I certainly wish that they would hurry up with the decision so that we can all move on.
meski Sep 7, 2010 12:24 PM	@Merari: If you want mobile internet, you can go out and buy it today. If you want high speed internet, you cannot. The Coalition's smoke and mirrors campaign that wireless will somehow be high speed is just a con.
umbria Sep 7, 2010 12:49 PM	If the coalition had promised the NBN including the essential separation of Telstra (see today's Australian for the benefits this brought in 2005 to British Telecom and UK customers), I am convinced they would have won enough regional seats to govern in their own right. The fibre will be laid eventually in the areas identified by McKinsey, so why not just get started with quick wins in regional and underserved urban localities? @RossyDuck and @Merari, nice to see you on board with your usual rants. Wiping out greenfields industry is what Telstra has done for 15 years. With the NBN we have Corning ready to ramp up local fibre production and the opportunity to upskill our nation's cablers, no doubt developing techniques marketable to the world. OPEL and NBN Mark I were cheap interim fixes that will need to be overbuilt with fibre. The $43 billion 90% NBN Mark II turns out to be a $26 billion 93% fibre rollout, better and cheaper than it started out. Yes, it was a mistake for Rudd-Gillard not to do a cost-benefit study, but if you did one you would have the (well-known) costs in dollars on one side against the known and expected benefits in unquantifiable dollars on the other. This is still perfectly valid for intelligent readers. And @Merari, the wireless coverage under the NBN will be ubiquitous, faster and less contended, because it is only a secondary broadband service with the heavy lifting done by speed-agnostic fibre.
Ice Sep 7, 2010 2:53 PM	@ MerariSchroeder dont put the batts on to the labour party I am in bothe th building and IT industry and all the fires and deaths they are saying because of the insulations scheme were happening way before the scheme ever happened on average in NSW alone there were 40 fires a year directly related to incorrect installation of batts the deaths were unfortunate but that happens when a 16 yr old with a computer can obtain a insulation installer licence from the MANUFACTURER within an hour. the above point is the only reason i didnt do any work under the scheme because anyone could do it.
MerariSchroeder Sep 7, 2010 4:10 PM	@Meski " If you want high speed internet, you cannot. The Coalition's smoke and mirrors campaign that wireless will somehow be high speed is just a con." Stop comparing FTTH (Future) with HSPDA (Current). LTE will achieve 300Mbps with 20Mhz. LTE Advanced will achieve 1Gbps with 100Mhz. Yes split up amongst the various users in the cell. But so too is FTTH with 32, 64 or 128 users sharing a single PON. And I never ruled out FTTN. This includes VDSL2 gateways which can achieve 100Mbps synchronously on a single pair. That can be built much more cost effectively, and then expanded to FTTH more affordably as required.
anonymous Sep 7, 2010 4:20 PM	@MerariSchroeder, you say "LTE will achieve 300Mbps with 20Mhz." A small correction seems to be needed: "LTE can achieve 300Mbps with 20Mhz, in the laboratory." It doesn't matter whether we compare FTTP and HSDPA now, or compare FTTP and LTE at some future point. The answer will always be the same - wireless can't match fibre for a national comms network. Wireless is a valuable coproduct with a fibre network, not a replacement.
cmasiero Sep 7, 2010 8:41 PM	@anonymous, you say "LTE can achieve 300Mbps with 20Mhz, in the laboratory." That's where all tech starts buddy, I'm sure broadband over copper wire was 'in the laboratory' before it became a reality. It DOES matter to compare FTTP and HSDPA now, as 'now' is exactly the wrong time to do fiber. No one questions fiber as a technology, it's fantastic, but do we really need it right now, in this economic climate. It's a lot of money. I'd rather not spend it and pay back the deficit. Look at fiber next election, not only do I have no faith in this government to deliver such a project anywhere NEAR it's estimates, no one is sure if the GFC isn't going to double dip like it did in the 20's depression. Not that it matters anyway, it's going ahead.
cmasiero Sep 7, 2010 8:52 PM	@Ace, You're saying Bob is right? And that you think government downplayed the technology? Well, most of the people I know just download movies (illegally of course) and just believe that the NBN will give them 100 times faster internet (as the government is advertising). Oh, and they think it will be cheaper because it's from the government. They definitely don't think it's an elitists thing... Where does you're thinking come from there? Lol. Ace, you have no idea about most people, but you're right about one thing, most people don't understand how it can make thier life better, because it actually can't. It just makes those torrents go so much faster, and lets you stream more youtube. Honestly, there is no new way of communication that we cannot already do today. If all of the internet junkies in the world are fat kids, then the government is just asking them if they want more cake. Yes please sir! I'll vote for you! Now give me the cake!. Sigh.
DazzaJ Sep 7, 2010 9:31 PM	Katter is an idiot! - good company for so-called PM and friends. I ask Who is going to update all the servers, websites, international connections, to accommodate this magical Gigabit connection, and instant access to every household ? (in the eastern states anyway as central and western states apparently don't count.) Simply put there is not the bandwidth available to accommodate such a ridiculous idea, at such a ridiculous cost. The fastest Fibreoptic speed is 111 GBits per second obtained by NT&T in a lab. - general useable rate is around 10 to 20. So unless theres less than 10 people per fibre then its very unlikely speeds can be maintained. Again it effected by distance, load and server access. Then we get to data centres, ISP servers, relay servers, wireless access points etc etc etc. All need to be upgraded at more dollars. Its current technology thats going to be old before its finished. Of course the end user won't have to pay any more? Its free isn't it.!?!?!? At least the children will remember it. They'll still be paying for it! They won't have any doctors, teachers or housings, but at least they'll have internet.
deteego Sep 8, 2010 1:14 PM	waterytowers wrote: @advocate I think that a vote for the greens was a vote for the NBN without a filter. Since the greens were the big winners in this election, I would say that qualifies as a desire by the public to build the NBN. It also means people want something done on climate change. I would argue that a vote for the greens was also a protest vote against Labor. The areas that most likely benefited from an NBN didn't get any increase in any votes to greens at all. It was in Melbourne that had the biggest swing towards green, which is probably the most well connected broadband area in Australia (you know those rural areas where apparently NBN is a massive plus, still had the most votes for Liberals, probably because at least some sane people realised that a 97% coverage of 12mb broadband at less then 10% of the cost was a much more sane idea then a 93% FTTH, something probably only 5% of the people would need and use) Greens also wan't to put a wealth tax, 50% mining tax (and a lot of other crazy policies) which if ever get through, will completely destroy Australia economically (I laughed how I saw the green's Minister on QA getting ripped to shreds in regards to such policies) DazzaJ wrote: Katter is an idiot! - good company for so-called PM and friends. I ask Who is going to update all the servers, websites, international connections, to accommodate this magical Gigabit connection, and instant access to every household ? (in the eastern states anyway as central and western states apparently don't count.) Simply put there is not the bandwidth available to accommodate such a ridiculous idea, at such a ridiculous cost. The fastest Fibreoptic speed is 111 GBits per second obtained by NT&T in a lab. - general useable rate is around 10 to 20. So unless theres less than 10 people per fibre then its very unlikely speeds can be maintained. Again it effected by distance, load and server access. Then we get to data centres, ISP servers, relay servers, wireless access points etc etc etc. All need to be upgraded at more dollars. Its current technology thats going to be old before its finished. Of course the end user won't have to pay any more? Its free isn't it.!?!?!? At least the children will remember it. They'll still be paying for it! They won't have any doctors, teachers or housings, but at least they'll have internet. Hell maybe we will even get operated on over the internet as well ;) Edited by deteego: 8/9/2010 01:16:02 PM Edited by deteego: 8/9/2010 01:17:45 PM
Vezayar Sep 8, 2010 7:38 PM	The amount of misinformation in this comment thread is absurd. You're all trolls and you don't even know it.
davmel Sep 8, 2010 8:42 PM	@vezayar That's the problem with our democracy. Any misinformed clueless idiot can vote. After a while you just give up trying to educate people that are too ignorant or lazy to learn some facts before spruiking an opinion.
shanic Sep 14, 2010 7:55 AM	@DazzaJ - Might be an idea to check what you wrote before judgement of someone else. Simply put, I Ask this question in your knowledge of networks. Do you think everyone will be accessing the same services/servers at the same time? How many 1 Mbit/sec + ADSL Services are there, millions? By your calculations the fiber's should already be saturated, true?
deteego Sep 15, 2010 12:32 AM	Vezayar wrote: The amount of misinformation in this comment thread is absurd. You're all trolls and you don't even know it. And this isn't trolling how?
RDEFCON1 Sep 15, 2010 11:05 AM	@deteego - snap!
johnpro2 Sep 17, 2010 8:13 AM	Bob is all over the street. He often votes against things he supports ..like his stated friend Mr Rudd ..he attempted to vote him out of a job to punish others ..? He likes NBC ,so he voted Libs who have vowed to almost rip it out of the ground. Inconsistencies seem follow him around ... Jp
johnpro2 Sep 17, 2010 8:21 AM	@deeteego to Vezayar And this isn't trolling how? Correct ..a new join and a first post. The saying 'don't feed the troll' might be applicable..? Jp
deteego Sep 17, 2010 9:34 AM	johnpro2 wrote: @deeteego to Vezayar And this isn't trolling how? Correct ..a new join and a first post. The saying 'don't feed the troll' might be applicable..? Jp It worked, didn't it?