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For the past six months, opinion polls have indicated that the coalition, headed by Tony Abbott, would win the next election convincingly. Even though this lead seems unassailable, there remains the issue of policies including Communications policy which is of particular interest to your humble blogger ... However, if current trends hold, and the voters continue to focus on the wardrobe of Julia Gillard (and Tony Abbott), and the ongoing online chatter manufacturers continue to produce a stream of trivia, there is a good chance that the opposition will win, having done nothing more than endlessly (and monotonously) repeated the mantras "stop the boats, stop the boats" and "stop the carbon tax" ... etc.
However, as ABC comedian Shaun Micallef reminds us, the election clock is still ticking down ... And as September approaches there is a remote possibility that voters might start to once again consider such policies ...
In this regard, the recent announcement of an NBN policy by communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull plugs one of the important and glaringly obvious holes in the coalition policy bucket. Of course it had to be Mr Turnbull, one of the few Liberal MPs to have offered anything sensible about communications policy, who was the frontman for the announcement.
The crucial thing to ask is does it really make sense? Is it really worth a 35 percent saving for half an NBN rolled out more quickly? Of course the exact savings and the difference in performance is very much dependant on how you do your accounting, and possibly on your political persuasion ... And your blogger is far too humble to pretend to know the answer to these and other questions which you should consider, dear reader ... However he will venture the opinion that it warms the cockles of his humble little heart to read that both major political parties in Australia are now committed to a major upgrade of the communications network in this continent. It would warm them even further if all parties would stop trying to score political points and start considering how a comprehensive network can be rolled out in a timely and effective manner.