For those of us who spend a lot of time on the Internet, whether productively or not, the National Broadband Network is an easy sell. If you’re not so Internet inclined then there are thousands of tech heads (which, yes, does include this blog) who will gladly take you on a tour of the benefits one that will likely fill an afternoon if you let them. Those same people will also be more than willing to tell you of the many deficits that the Liberal’s NBN plan has, from simple things like having to run the fiber to the nodes anyway all the way down to the power usage and maintenance costs of the cabinets required by such plans. Of course such arguments are usually lost on non-technical people as they’re nuances of a much larger policy that require a decent amount of tech knowledge to understand.
We also lost our champion Senator Conroy in the latest leadership spill, someone who’s deep technical understanding had helped to sell the NBN to the tech crowd. Of course there were also those who were glad to see him go, mostly due to his involvement with the Clean Feed policy, but considering that never went ahead I feel it’s valid to say that his time in office was an overall positive for the state of the high tech in Australia. His replacement however couldn’t have been any less impressive with Anthony Albanese, someone who’s gone on record saying they’re something of a technophobe. This wasn’t taken as a good move at the time, at least not in the tech crowd, but there is one school of thought that this might be just what the NBN needs:
Albanese’s role, then, is less to be the pig-headed advocate that Conroy was, and more to be something of a ring-master — trying to keep his deputies working together to sell a message of continuity to the voting populace. Whether or not he can make that happen without the technical nous that Conroy had, remains to be seen; he will also face a demanding telco community that’s already trying to set his agenda for him.
And yet, just as Tony Abbott seems to have become a stunned mullet in the wake of Rudd’s resurgence, perhaps Conroy’s departure — and the devenomisation of the NBN debate — will allow Albanese to muffle Turnbull and polish the project into a political asset come election time. Either way, it’s sure to be an interesting ride.
I was sceptical when I first started reading the article but after having some time to mull it over I’m inclined to agree with Braue. Whilst it was fun to see Conroy poke hole’s in Turnbull’s faulty technical knowledge it ultimately wasn’t getting us anywhere and the debate felt like it was stagnating on technical points that were doing nothing to win over the general public with the NBN. With things like the asbestos debacle (which is clearly Telstra’s fault and not the NBN’s) most people will just hear “asbestos” and “NBN” and draw their own conclusions; similarly with a dozen other issues like the roll out and the musical chairs that seems to be happening with NBNCo’s board seats. Albanese then, with his pedigree for managing the Infrastructure and Transport portfolio, shifts the focus away from this being a tech-only debate and into the realm of a big infrastructure project. That changes the debate significantly as it’s hard to argue against projects that are ostensibly for the long term benefit of Australia.
His effect on the debate will be very short lived should the Liberal coalition come into power this year. The NBN was a key policy that helped Labor form the minority government 3 years ago and should a similar situation happen this time around then it could pull a victory for them once again. Current polls don’t swing in Labor’s favor however the return of Rudd has seen them get closer than they have been in a long time which makes the likelihood of a similar situation happening again that much more likely. I doubt that the NBN will be their saving grace two times in a row but it’s hard to discount that it will be a factor should it happen again.
I had always tried to explain the numerous benefits of the NBN to my non-technical friends but apart from “faster cats to your browser” convincing them of the other benefits was always a slog, especially with the price tag. Switching tactics and putting it forward as a general infrastructure project, one that will create jobs and opportunities for all Australian’s, seems like the smarter move and I’m sure Labor can win over a few skeptics with this approach. As someone who talks tech incessantly this seemed a little counter intuitive at first but once you realize that most of Australia isn’t elbow deep in tech news all day it makes a lot more sense and hopefully that will work out well for the NBN.
