[1st-mile-nm] Australian gov't selected based partly on broadband issues

[Marianne Granoff]

 From another list:

>As you are all no doubt aware, ;^) the Australian elections a couple 
>of weeks ago resulted in a hung Parliament for the first time since 
>maybe 1940. After tense negotiations, it has just become clear that 
>Labor will remain in power, with a minority government and by a 
>margin of a single vote in Parliament (76-74).
>
>And the issue that gave them the hairline victory is ... (drum roll) ...
>
>
>
>BROADBAND!      Who woulda' thunk?
>
>
>
>I am hard pressed to think of any place where broadband actually was 
>the margin of victory or defeat in a national election. (Well, sort 
>of ... The election was about a lot of things. And while broadband 
>seems to have loomed large in the decision of the two independents 
>who ultimately settled the outcome, it surely was not the only 
>factor for them, either.) Anyway, it seems to me that it is a first.
>
>The plan to invest ... Who knows, maybe $43 billion Aussie? ... into 
>a national fibre-based network for more than 90% of Australians will 
>go forward. For a country with ten million households, that is a lot 
>of dough per capita. The Coalition, who will now be in opposition, 
>would have cancelled it.
>
>"The issues that I thought were critical to this, and possibly the 
>most critical, was broadband," Windsor said at a packed media 
>conference in Canberra.
>"There's an enormous opportunity for regional Australians to engage 
>with the infrastructure of this century and to pass up that 
>opportunity and miss the opportunity for millions of country 
>Australians, I thought, was too good an opportunity to miss."
>Windsor said his advisers on broadband, of which he said he had "a 
>number of", suggested that, on broadband, "you do it once, you do it 
>right and you do it with fibre".
>"And that has been one of the major influences that I've had in 
>terms of making a decision," Windsor said."
>
>Check out:
><http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/broadband-major-influence-to-windsors-labor-backing-20100907-14z3s.html>http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/broadband-major-influence-to-windsors-labor-backing-20100907-14z3s.html 
>
>
>(Disclaimer: I have no personal interest in the outcome of the 
>elections, but Australia is a country where I have occasionally done 
>work, both for the regulator and for commercial parties.)

At least it was a real issue. . . 
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