Australian Federal Election 2016: State of the Internet

By February 2016 NBN Co was 65,268 "construction completions" short of its planned budgeted target of 94,273 fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) installations and behind by 740,000 
premises connections, with connection costs to each house or business also blowing out according to an internal company report obtained by Fairfax Media:

"The report, which was never intended for public disclosure, reveals the extent to which the more than $46 billion project has drifted off course, mainly during the time when Mr Turnbull was in direct control as communications minister - the portfolio he held before replacing Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in September……

Under the heading "Commercial in Confidence: Scale the Deployment Program", the report outlines a plethora of faults, including that delays in power approvals and construction are being caused by electricity companies which account for 38,537 premises or 59 per cent of overall slippages against the target.

Another 30 per cent of delays are down to material shortages and a further 11 per cent are attributed to completion reviews.

"Construction completions currently sits at 29K against the corporate budget of 94K," the report states.

"Gap-to-target has increased from 49,183 to 65,268 at week ending February 12.

"Construction completions gap can be attributed to 3 main issues: power, supply, and completions under review."

Also noted in the report is  a rise in the cost per connection of design and construction, which has now reached $1366, compared with the target price of $1114 - a 23 per cent increase."  

Image of Telstra communications pit (Sydney) from Delimiter, 1 March 2016

By now I imagine we are all used to images of aging sections of Telstra's copper network (such as the one above) when people discuss Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull's new and 'innovative' National Broadband Network (NBN).

What we are not accustomed to are images of NBN's actual blunders with Fibre To The Node (FTTN). Planning and operational blunders which appear to be at least a partial cause of the treacle-slow roll out of Malcolm's ill-thought out hybrid scheme.

Examples in South Australia sent to North Coast Voices by a resident of that state. All comments under images are his:

 "The houses near these nodes all have underground power and phone lines. It would have been quicker and cheaper to run fibre."

"NBN running kilometres of new conduit and 200 pair 4 gauge copper cable (left) and nodes side by side with another 190 metres away."

"There is a node to the left of this pillar. This is all 200 pair copper cable. Cheaper, faster sooner. BULLSHIT."

"Generator​ at Murray Bridge, close to power"

"Strathalbyn​​ - Power on both sides of the road and they were running a generator hired from Able Hire many months.The tower was laying in the grass for six months so why wasn't the power ready to connect from day one?" 

As for those NBN costings:

A cable with 4 fibre optic fibres costs 70 cents per metre if bought in large quantities. A cable with 4 fibre cores costs $2.00 per metre in small quantities. These prices are easily verified.
Householders have to pay for the whole footpath, the whole gutter, half the road, sewer, water-main and fire points, gas pipe, storm-water pipes, telephone wires and conduits and power poles and lines or underground power. This is an enormous cost. Contrast this with a relatively small piece of fibre optic cable that is only going a short distance to the Optical Splitter that connects blocks of 32 houses, the cost per connection would be minor, only the cost of a few metres of fibre cable to connect between streets. You would soon have a town or suburb connected for minimal cost.
Currently, when connections are made using copper wire, these copper wires that go from a house to an exchange may be up to eight kilometres in length, which is sixteen kilometres of copper for the two wires. This is a massive cost compared to fibre optic cable.
Landowners with large properties have run their own copper phone lines on top of fences in the past, but distance can be a significant problem with copper. Fibre optic cables can be reliably run 200 kilometres without amplifiers. Also electric fences can cause interference on nearby copper lines. Fibre optic cables are not affected in this way. I have been assured by Peter Ferris of NBNCo that large property holders will be able to cheaply obtain and run their own fibre cables and then easily obtain a connection to the network. [South Australian resident, 2010]

A South Australian resident just seven kilometres by line of sight from the Adelaide central business district has been quoted $150,000 to upgrade to a National Broadband Network fibre connection. Read more: 
http://www.itnews.com.au/news/first-nbn-fibre-extension-comes-in-150000-312027#ixzz42fHnUN24

The NBN access lucky dip:

After attending a Community meeting yesterday, we were advised that it appears likely we would not be included in the Fibre rollout, as it appears to finish at the council border, not extending to the end of the road (a distance of about 1km).

They (NBN Community meeting people) happily advised that we would receive Fixed Wireless coverage when it was installed.

The problem with the Wireless solution is that none of the properties have direct LoS to any tower where the Wireless would be installed…..

What's left?

NBN Satellite. To be within sight of the CBD (~7km as the crow flies) and have to resort to using a Satellite service for broadband is just crazy.

FTTN would even be better, as the Node would be at most 1km from the last property (if installed at the end of the planned Fibre rollout on the affected road), however, I dont believe FTTN is an option being considered by NBNCo. Read more: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1959073

Hills dwellers are not strangers to the vagaries of technology – thanks to the terrain we find so beautiful.
Many residents have tales of having to stand out on the verandah in the cold in order to make mobile phone calls.
Then there are those Cudlee Creek residents who live 15 minutes from Tea Tree Plaza but can't watch the local news because they were relegated to a satellite service at the digital television switch over.
But this region might discover just how off the grid some of its population might be when the NBN Co finishes rolling out the national superfast broadband infrastructure program.
The difference between the "haves" (fibre to the node) and the "have a fraction of what's available" (wireless or satellite) might be the difference of only 100m, depending on where your home is located in this region.
That might not seem so important now but in the future, when reliable access to superfast broadband is considered the norm and the copper wire system is obsolete, residents might find themselves severely disadvantaged.
If you lived in Andamooka in remote SA, you might be more willing to accept that you can only have access to satellite.
But if you live at Piccadilly like Stephen Birrell, and you did your homework before you moved your international business into the Hills, you wouldn't be happy to learn that fibre to the node is too difficult, contrary to initial advice.
Mr Birrell has the means to buy the technology he needs to make his business work, or he can move his company to the US.
His argument is that access to the NBN is being paid for by taxpayers as a basic infrastructure service but a disproportionately high number of taxpayers will receive a significantly slower and more expensive mode of broadband delivery based on geography.
It's why he and his neighbors have started the action group Gully Road Digital Divide to effect change in the NBN roll-out.
Whether the group brings about change in Mayo in an election year remains to be seen.

The cost and complexity of fixed services are prohibitive in some areas but if Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants Australia to be the country of innovation, perhaps the criteria need to be revisited or at least debated by the community. [The Courier, 9 March 2016]

Founder & Chief Medical Officer, Wellend Health, Adelaide, Australia

All this paints a poor picture of Malcolm Bligh Turnbull's grand plan for an 'innovative and agile' nation with citizens and corporations connected to each other and the world.

The situation is all the more frustrating when one realizes that NBN Co. has been sitting on an alternative to the optic fibre currently in use - skinny fibre.

Of the skinny fibre trials conducted so far CEO of NBN Bill Morrow has stated: 

The findings are encouraging. Relative to cost, we were able to reduce the cost per premises by roughly $450 per premise. And while this is early, it's still significant. And relative to time, we also believe that we could shave four weeks off the time of the build.

Although to date the roll out remit given to NBN Co. by Malcolm Turnbull apparently would not allow it the flexibility to do so.

Is it any wonder that the internal company nickname for the roll  out of the NBN Mark II is Operation Clusterf*ck.

Which leads to another potential problem - the Coalition's Fibre To The Node (FTTN) apparently continues the current ADSL status quo for many Internet users, which is an electricity dependent Internet connection.

What happens to these FTTN connections (and phone connections consumers are/will be paying for in their home or business plans via their Internet Provider) during scheduled and unplanned power outages¹?

NBN Co. obligingly informed us in 2014 that we would need to order its Power Supply Unit Battery Backup Service (which includes a standard battery type used in many different systems) because we will not be able to even dial 000 in a power outage.

Which is definitely a retrograde step, because currently if an ADSL connection is knocked out by a power cut at least the landline phone still functions normally.

This question about power outages was asked in March 2016 by that South Australian resident who commented:

“I made several calls to NBN Co to finally realise that I know more about their technology than the help consultants.

Will my phone and internet work if the power goes out? No, you will need to have a charged mobile phone if there's a power blackout.

I then asked the question about why they have batteries in the nodes, if the 'phones are not going to work in a power failure and was told that they hope that they will work.

What rot.

I also asked why the FTTN system will be running slower for the first 18 months and they couldn't tell me.

I know that you can't have the ADSL and VSDL systems working at full power because one system is interfering with the other. The VSDL interferes with ADSL.
Please see: http://blog.jxeeno.com/nbn-fttn-limited-to-121-mbps-during-transition/”

Footnote

1. Examples of electricity blackouts in 2015:

January  Geelong region storm cause power outages across city ...

February Power outages leave northwest Victoria in the dark ...

March  Wildlife causes power outage…1,455 customers

April  55,000 homes in the Hunter still without power

May  Power restored after outages affect 23,000 homes in ... - ABC

June  Newport crash triggers power outage, house fire, traffic ...

July Carnarvon planned outages in July 2015 - outages will occur from 9 July- 16 July across multiple locations

August Power outage leaves 2500 north Canberra homes in the dark

September Power outage affects 30000 homes and businesses ... - ABC

Lightning, hail and damaging wind hit Brisbane as severe ...affecting more than 1,000 homes and businesses

October Brisbane power cut: Fire causes outages | The Courier-Mail

November Power outage hits thousands in northeast Brisbane suburbs ...

December Power outage in Kurnell: NSW State Emergency Service ...

Turnbull was "given the opportunity of a lifetime and in five to six months it appears he has blown it"

Amid all the election timing speculation, former Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennet, a strong critic of Tony Abbott, is highly critical of the current Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The Australian, 10 March 2016:

There are only seven Saturdays Malcolm Turnbull can realistically choose to send the nation to the polls.

Football grand finals, the Olympics, school holidays and constitutional reasons mean that if the Prime Minister passes on holding a double-dissolution election on July 2, the only workable dates to choose are August 27, September 3, 10, 17 or 24 and October 15.

The great prime ministerial ­advantage in an election year is having the power to name the day to face your destiny and Mr Turnbull yesterday teased journalists about the “fascinating sport” of speculation, saying: “I’m not going to give you the election date.”

Yet his options are squeezed by a unique combination of Senate consequences and a deal with the Greens on Senate voting reform that means the new rules the ­government desperately wants to use will not take effect until July 1.

While some ministers believe July 2 is “locked in”, some say Mr Turnbull is keeping open the option of a regular half-Senate poll. The first available date is August 6 but that coincides with the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics, which also makes an election for most of August problematic. Aug­ust 27 is the best option for the month after the Olympics finish.

September 3 is emerging as the favourite option if Mr Turnbull does not have a July 2 election. It is close to the anniversary of the 2013 election on September 7 and Mr Turnbull would not need to make a decision until August 1 allowing the early stages of the campaign to be during the Olympics, with a two-week blitz to polling day.

The other three Saturdays in September are a reasonable chance but there’s no possibility of an October 1 election as it clashes with the AFL grand final and the NRL grand final is the following day while October 8 risks being messy as it falls during school holidays. October 15 is the last realistic option for the Prime Minister, who would start to face claims he was afraid to face the people.

A double dissolution must be announced by May 11 for constitutional reasons but to take advantage of the new Senate rules the government needs the poll to be on July 2, meaning an official campaign period that would be 20 days longer than usual. While Assistant Science Minister Karen Andrews said yesterday a marathon seven-week-plus campaign could have “real positives” for the government and give it time to “explain what our vision for the future is”, others fear almost two months in winter could be high risk.

As Newspoll showed a slide in voter satisfaction with Mr Turnbull and the Coalition has lost its poll advantage from the start of the year to be deadlocked with Labor at 50-50 in two-party terms, Liberal elders have begun to sound the alarm. Jeff Kennett yesterday blasted Mr Turnbull, saying he was “given the opportunity of a lifetime and in five to six months it appears he has blown it”.

The former Victorian premier said Mr Turnbull had no plan for the future of the country and took over the leadership from Tony ­Abbott for “his own self-interest”. He said speculation about an early election was designed “simply to cover up their own failings”…...

Australian Federal Election 2016: oh dear, Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan is at it again

In February this year Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan fronted the Grafton Chamber of Commerce and delivered a large pork pie regarding thresholds for foreign investment in Australian agricultural land and businesses.

He was at it again this month with a public assurance concerning foreign workers made to ABC News on 9 March which also picked up the daily double by repeating that misinformation about investment thresholds:

A National Party MP is hoping local jobs will not be lost as a result of a Chinese buy-out of north coast NSW macadamia farms.

Four properties covering 380 hectares at Dunoon near Lismore, and formerly run by US-based Hancock Farms, have been bought by a Chinese group known as "Discovery".

The member for Page Kevin Hogan said he was aware of rumours of a sale.

Mr Hogan said a Free Trade Agreement with China did not mean the door was now open to foreign workers.

"It's a well-known fact within the free trade agreements that we do with any country, not just China, because let's not just make this a China thing, that any company and there's been companies that have owned Australian assets for 200 years and with every free trade agreement the work has to be offered to Australians first," Mr Hogan said.

Kevin Hogan said any foreign investment greater than $15 million had to be approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board, and he was waiting on information on whether the macadamia sale was vetted.

"We made an election commitment to lower it from the ridiculous amount of $ 250 million when it used to be triggered to look at a purchase if it was in the national interest, we have lowered that from 250 to 15 [million dollars] so if this entity has triggered over $15 million it would have absolutely gone before the Foreign Investment Review Board," Mr Hogan said. [my red bolding]

Now voters in the Page electorate are far from silly and many would have wondered what free trade agreement Mr. Hogan had been reading to boldly state that “with every free trade agreement the work has to be offered to Australians first”.

The Dept. of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s own copy of ARTICLE 10.4: GRANT OF TEMPORARY ENTRY of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement clearly states:

3. In respect of the specific commitments on temporary entry in this Chapter, unless otherwise specified in Annex 10-A, neither Party shall:

(a) impose or maintain any limitations on the total number of visas to be granted to natural persons of the other Party; or

(b) require labour market testing, economic needs testing or other procedures of similar effect as a condition for temporary entry.

So this free trade agreement allows an unlimited number of temporary work visas for Chinese nationals (and in some cases their spouses) in many employment categories and, there is no test to see if the employment positions in Chinese-owned businesses within this country that they are taking up – for a period up to 4 years - could be filled by suitably qualified Australian workers.

One has to wonder if Kevin Hogan reads beyond the regular ‘talking points’ distributed to MPs by his party.

Australian Federal Election 2016: these tired old tricks no longer work, Tones

This was the Member for Warringah, Tony Abbott, in the Australian Financial Times on 9 March 2016:

On Friday, Tony Abbott said one of Labor's "five new taxes" included a housing tax (negative gearing), a wealth tax (capital gains), a seniors tax (superannuation), a workers tax (smokers), and the carbon tax.

"Five new taxes is what Bill Shorten has in store should Labor win the next election”…..

There it is, another three-word slogan – “five new taxes”.

So where are these five new taxes?

Negative gearing is a tax concession not a tax charge and Labor does not intend to eliminate this concession for all existing negatively geared investments or future new housing stock – the concession will be removed only on any future investment purchases of old housing stock after 30 June 2017.

Capital gains tax already exists so it is not new. The existing discount subsidy on this tax will be halved under a Labor Government on 1 July 2017. However, all investments made before this date will not be affected by this change and will be fully grandfathered and this policy change will also not affect investments made by superannuation funds. The CGT discount will not change for small business assets. This will ensure that no small businesses are worse off under these changes.

Superannuation is already taxed at certain points of accumulation. Labor is proposing to make this tax fairer by discouraging its use for estate planning/tax avoidance by people with very large incomes by realigning super tax concessions i.e. lowering the High Income Superannuation Contribution (HISC) threshold to $250,000. Around 110,000 people will be affected by the new arrangements.  It will  also reduce the tax-free concession available to people with annual superannuation incomes from earnings of more than $75,000. From 1 July 2017, future earnings on assets supporting income streams will be tax‑free up to $75,000 a year for each individual. Earnings above the $75,000 threshold will attract the same concessional rate of 15 per cent that applies to earnings in the accumulation phase. This measure will affect approximately 60,000 superannuation account holders with superannuation balances in excess of $1.5 million......To ensure that similar concessions are reduced for defined benefit superannuation schemes, Labor will also remove the 10% tax offset for defined benefit income above $75,000, estimated to effect approximately 9,500 account holders.

Tobacco taxation already exists so it also is not new, but the tax percentage will change if Labor wins government. Resulting in a price increase on a packet of cigarettes of an est. $10 spread over four years.

Carbon tax does not exist currently – in fact the previous Labor government's carbon levy was scheduled to end in 2014-15 as it moved towards the then legislated change to a market-driven carbon pricing mechanism. In 2014 a newly elected Abbott Government abolished this national emissions trading scheme. To date Labor has not announced details of its new climate change policy except to point out that it intends to implement an emissions trading scheme which will not be a tax.

Five new taxes planned under Labor? Er..... more like no new taxes in these five instances identified by Tony Abbott in full election campaign-mode.

While we're waiting for the Turnbull Government to stop chasing its tail.......

A look round at the political landscape in the lead up to this year's federal election.

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Which Australian politician said this?

The Prime Minister cannot even summon up the courage to try to fix this mess. His threat of a double dissolution and an early election proves to all of us what this budget is really about. It is not about protecting the jobs of Australians, least of all the one million Australians it says will soon be out of work; it is about the job security of one man and one man only. A Prime Minister frightened of the consequences of his mismanagement now wants to cut and run before he is found out. [House of Representatives Hansard, 14 May 2009]

Why, it was Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull as Leader of the Opposition in May 2009.

Looking back less than seven years later, this speech to parliament makes his current situation almost seem like karma.

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I’m told there was a “great turnout” for the International Women’s Day dinner at which Labor Senator Penny Wong was guest speaker on 8 March 2016 and for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's Lismore City Hall Q&A on 10 March.

The number of people seeking to book a seat at the dinner exceeded the seating capacity at the Lismore Workers’ Club and people were “spilling out of the building for Bill” according to one supporter of Labor candidate Janelle Saffin, who is seeking election in the Page electorate after losing to the Nationals Kevin Hogan in 2013. 

The Northern Star covered the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate’s visit:

WE asked on our Facebook page which questions you wanted us to ask Penny Wong during her visit.

What will you do for youth unemployment in regional areas?

I think the first thing is to make sure we give our young people the best opportunities they have, or can, to get the skills that they need.

And the problem we've got at the moment is we've got a Federal Government taking money out of TAFE, taking money out of apprenticeships, making university harder to get into and asking people to pay $100,000 for their degree.

So I think the first thing is to try and get the right investments in vocation education, in apprenticeships, in TAFE - and we've got a TAFE funding guarantee - as well as making sure our universities are made accessible.

If your government was elected, would you add dental to the Medicare rebate?

I understand how expensive dental work can be, and in government what we did do was put money towards dentistry services for children.

Certainly, you know there's only one party that supports Medicare and wants to strengthen Medicare and that's the Labor party.

Can you give us an update on the Gonski reforms?

Labor has recently re-committed to the full Gonski funding. Our education policy is a commitment to the full Gonski funding, to roll-out across the country.

Of course this is a very big difference between us and the Liberal and National parties who have walked away from their commitment to fully fund Gonski.

People in rural and regional Australia will be the ones most disadvantaged by the National party's refusal to fund the reforms and I'm very proud Labor has put money on the table to make sure every child can be the best of who they are, no matter where they live.

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Tony Windsor represented the people of Tamworth in the NSW Parliament from 1991-2001 and the people of New England in the Federal Parliament from 2001-2013. This year he comes out of retirement to stand in the New England electorate again and support begins to gather.

The Guardian, 29 February 2016:

A Reachtel poll of 712 residents in the seat of New England conducted on 11 January found 32.2% would vote for Windsor as their first preference if he returned – compared with 39.5% for Joyce.

The poll, obtained by Guardian Australia, found 11.2% would vote for Labor and 4.6% would vote for the Greens with 6.2% nominating others including other independents with 5.1% undecided. The Palmer United Party attracted just 1.3%.

The polling results suggest if the majority of Labor and Greens preferences flowed towards Windsor, Joyce – who has been Nationals leader for less than three weeks – could lose New England.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 March 2016:

Exclusive ReachTEL polling of elector sentiment obtained by Fairfax Media - the first such voter-feedback in the crucial electorate - shows primary support for Mr Joyce stands at an apparently healthy 43.1 per cent, compared to Mr Windsor, who trails on 38.

But with the likelihood of strong preference flows from anti-Coalition Labor voters, who constitute 7.1 per cent, and equally hostile Greens voters who account for another 3.4 per cent, there is a reasonable chance Mr Windsor would finish ahead, were a contest held now.

The automated telephone survey of 662 residents across New England was conducted on the evening of March 10 - the very same day Mr Windsor declared his candidacy.

The supportwindsor.com campaign website was created on 9 March 2016 according to Whois.

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On 15 March 2016 a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network held in Committee Room 2S3 at Parliament House revealed that the internal company nickname for the roll out of Malcolm Turnbull’s hybrid version of the National Broadband Network (NBN) is Operation Clusterf*ck.

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The Northern Star, 15 March 2016:

Thanks to Clarrie Rivers for this snapshot.

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Why Abbott's sex life is my business

Cross-post with North Coast Voices' thanks and permission from No Place for Sheep:

6 March 2016

Why Abbott’s sex life is my business

Mr & Mrs Abbott

There’s only one circumstance in which I consider the sexual lives of politicians to be my business, and that’s when they legislate about what goes on in other citizens’ sexual lives.

Failed Prime Minister Tony Abbott operates from a platform that is largely based on his personal morality, drawn from Catholic dogma. This morality advocates traditional heterosexual monogamous marriage, and argues fiercely that this is the only circumstance in which children ought to be raised.

Abbott supports the current Marriage Act with the amendment added by John Howard specifically to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.

Same-sex marriage will, in Abbott’s view, destroy what he perceives as the “sanctity” of monogamous heterosexual marriage.

Abbott foisted the notion of a plebiscite on same-sex marriage on his party, a completely unnecessary, extremely expensive and likely barbaric exercise in which citizens vote on whether or not other citizens are permitted to legally commit themselves to each other in marriage.

As health minister in the Howard government, Abbott refused Australian women access to the non surgical abortion pill known as RU 486 because his personal morality is offended by abortion. RU 486 had been declared perfectly safe, and was widely used in many parts of the world. Abbott directly interfered in the sexual lives and futures of women who did not wish to have a child, by denying us access to this drug should we need to use it, thus restricting our options in the event of unplanned pregnancy.

Abbott has paraded his wife and his daughters as evidence of his personal morality: he is a traditional, heterosexual married male, and therefore we assume him to be upholding monogamy as a significant value in our society and in his personal life.

Tony Abbott has made it his business to comment on, criticise and exercise legislative control over the sexual practices and commitments of Australians. If he is not living up to the ideals he demands are enforced, if Abbott is himself desecrating the perceived sanctity of monogamous marriage by infidelity with a married woman, I have a right to know about that hypocrisy.

If Tony Abbott would care to lose his interest in controlling the sexual practices of adult citizens, I will be more than happy to lose my interest in his. Until then, everything Tony Abbott does that can be seen to affect the sanctity of the ideals he espouses and imposes is my business, and yours, and everyone else’s.

One woman dying a violent death every six days in Australian 2016

Destroy the Joint, 14 March 2016