Ballina Shire Council State of Play 2023: in performance sadly just like every other tier of government as year's end approaches

Ballina Shire Council 
 IMAGE: NBN News 19.06.23

Ballina Shire Local Government Area has an estimated resident population of approx. 46,850 men, women & children (.iD Community:demographic resources, 2022), with a population density of 96.47 persons per square km across its total area of 485.6 sq. km – give or take what the sea hasn’t taken at the last high tide.

It is ‘managed’ by a Council comprised of nine councillors elected to represent three wards and a popularly elected mayor. Bringing the mix of often competing interest to ten local politicians, as well as a non-political council administration and staff running at around 336 permanent full time, part time and temporary staff (excluding casual staff).

Ballina Shire Council is blessed or bedevilled by at least 11 standing committees, at least one reference group and. sits on at last glance 11 other regional organisations including Rous Water and the Northern Rivers Joint Organisation.

That works out to be one elected politician and administrative employee for every 135 Ballina residents/ratepayers, operating within an annual budget that doesn’t appear to fudge its numbers.

So, in 2023 the shire should be running like a well-oiled machine. However this is regional local government we are looking at and, it can be as dysfunctional as the other two tiers of government.

The Echo online newspaper discusses Ballina Shire Council....

30 October 2023

Ballina’s bouncing boundaries

Many people assume that in a civilised country like Australia, electoral boundaries are all taken care of by impartial officials, but in Ballina, it turns out councillors have some say in deciding their own ward boundaries within the shire.

As the local population changes, this has led to an ongoing kerfuffle, with the latest chapter occupying much of the latest Ballina Council meeting.

Defying staff suggestions, Cr Rod Bruem and his allies are continuing to push for a new boundary adjustment which they say is based on common sense geographical boundaries.

This includes moving North Ballina to A Ward, moving Cumbalum to A Ward, moving areas of Newrybar west of the motorway to C Ward, and moving areas of East Ballina (north and north-east of the Richmond River) to B Ward.

After the latest period of public consultation, there were a grand total of two submissions in support of this idea and 55 objections, for reasons including; perceived councillor disadvantage, too many people being impacted, little benefit, high cost, poor forward planning, perceived political interference, and the fact that there is greater variance between the population of wards under the Bruem approach than via the original staff proposal (flying in the face of the whole reason for boundary adjustments).

In the meeting, Cr Bruem blamed the ‘green left Echo newspaper’ for stoking misunderstandings about his proposal among the general public.

He said accusations from critics that his new boundaries amounted to gerrymandering were ridiculous and unfounded, later claiming that he was actually correcting earlier gerrymandering by the 2007 council. He described the current ward division in Ballina as being like the way Berlin was carved up during the Cold War.

Cr Bruem said that residents had tried to have him thrown out of the recent Cumbalum Residents Meeting (this is one of the main areas to be affected by the proposed change) and he had to be rescued by Cr Kiri Dicker.

Cr Bruem claimed he was simply acting based on electoral commission principles, and reducing confusion, by seeking to follow easy to understand geographical boundaries in his proposed ward boundary adjustments. If there were going to be unfortunate political ramifications for his opponents, such as Cr Jeff Johnson (Cr Bruem denied this), then that was nothing to do with him.

Cr Johnson called on councillors to follow their previous unanimous decision to accept staff-suggested ward boundaries back in February, as had already been supported by the electoral commission. He said Cr Bruem’s last minute change was ‘politically motivated’, and a waste of council resources and ratepayers’ money.

New low

He said the recent majority decision to proceed with the Bruem changes was ‘a new low for this council’ in his fifteen years there.

‘It may seem trivial, but I believe that for a councillor or a group of councillors to overturn a unanimous decision and to draw up a different electoral boundary is not the precedent that we want to set,’ said Cr Johnson.

‘It compromises this council as a whole. That is not why we’re here.’

He went on to say that far from simplifying things, the proposed changed would lead to greater confusion, as well as increasing the population differential between wards, from 4.85 per cent to 7.68 per cent, meaning the whole issue would likely have to be revisited again in the near future…..

In the end, Mayor Cadwallader again used her casting vote to decide the issue in Cr Bruem’s favour, with Crs Dicker, Johnson, Meehan, Chate and Johnston voting against.

27 October 2023

Fireworks over C Zone debate in Ballina

Yesterday’s Ballina Shire Council meeting saw accusations and insults hurled across the chamber as councillors split down the middle on the contentious issue of conservation zones.

The question boils down to whether rural landowners should be able to decide for themselves if there are C zones on their properties, (‘opting in’), or whether these areas should be identified in collaboration with council staff on the basis of evidence and negotiation, as part of the modernisation and integration of rural zones.

Progressive councillors brought on a rescission motion in an attempt to undo the previous (very tight) decision to support opt in C zones, noting that council staff and the Department of Planning and Environment have expressed concerns about Ballina Council’s direction on the issue.

Conservation or conservation zones?

There was a surprising deputation from koala activist Maria Matthes, who said, ‘I almost can’t believe that I am speaking against conservation zones, but this is about conservation and not conservation zones.’ She suggested that inconsistencies in the application of conservation zones risked alienating landholders, with potentially negative implications for wildlife corridors, especially when weedy areas are identified as holding conservation value.

‘I would like to see Ballina Council go back to where it should have been 11 years ago, with the new biodiversity strategy in hand, and bring landholders along for the biodiversity conservation journey,’ she said.

During the following debate, Cr Jeff Johnson said he’d seen some bad decisions on council over his last fifteen years, ‘but the proposal to make a major decision on property zoning classifications before the end of an extensive public consultation period, or reporting back to council, has to be one of the worst.’

He said the recent feedback from the state government indicated that the new approach failed every test. ‘I’m shocked at the way this final process has been hijacked; that proper process isn’t being allowed to be followed.’

Cr Johnson said council staff had already alleviated concerns about C zones from Cr Eva Ramsey and others, when they made it clear ‘that no existing farming practices or areas would be impacted, or would be proposed to be impacted by the zoning review.’…..

Mayor Cadwallader later defended her use of the casting vote [in favour of opt-in C Zones], declaring she was supporting the status quo and would ‘vote for common sense every day of the week.’…..

26 October 2023

Country mayors call for regional crime inquiry

Ballina Mayor Sharon Cadwallader will use a mayoral minute in today’s Ballina Shire Council meeting to call for a parliamentary inquiry into crime, law and order in regional NSW, in line with a recent report from the Country Mayors Association.

Supported by the Police Association of NSW, the report also calls for an increase in funding, to enhance front line policing in regional communities in need….

Mayor Sharon Cadwallader will this morning be asking her colleagues to endorse the recommendations of the Country Mayors Association report, and requesting member for Ballina Tamara Smith to consider supporting the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into rural crime….

Mayor Sharon Cadwallader will this morning be asking her colleagues to endorse the recommendations of the Country Mayors Association report, and requesting member for Ballina Tamara Smith to consider supporting the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into rural crime.

The first point of the mayoral motion of 26.10.23 was as follows:

That, Council calls on all members of the NSW Parliament to commit to bipartisan support to establish a Parliamentary Inquiry into and report on the rate of crime in all categories reported on by the Bureau of Crime Statistical and Research (BOCSAR) in Regional, Rural and Remote New South Wales, specifically focussing on the inequity between Metro and Regional Local Government areas.

Happy to provide busy work for the NSW Parliament in duplicating the detailed crime demographics produced by BOSCAR up to June 2023 covering every local government area in the state at both metro, regional and local level, Ballina Shire councillors found something they could all agree on.

FOR VOTE - All Councillors voted unanimously.

ABSENT. DID NOT VOTE - Cr Rodney Bruem

Gumbaynggirr custodians are calling for our help to protect forests of the proposed Great Koala National Park

 

Approved plans for forestry operations at Newry State Forest were made active last week.(Supplied: Bellingen Activist Network) IMAGE: ABC News, 3 August 2023.

Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales, email, 5 August 2023:

The battle to protect the Great Koala National Park is ramping up. Will you support the Newry Forest protest camp and Gumbaynggirr traditional owners to protect this culturally and ecologically significant site?

…., for the past few days Gumbaynggirr custodians, environment groups and the wider community have peacefully protested to save the forest from logging destruction.

The forest has recently won a few moments of temporary reprieve from the bulldozers in the past few days. The campaign has had a series of powerful protests and received coverage in the Coffs Coast Advocate, NBN, NITV, and The Echo.

Gumbayngirr traditional owners Sandy Greenwood, Uncle Micklo Jarrett and Uncle Bud Marshall.

But the fight is not over and those at the camp are calling out for your support.

“If we don't act now our deeply significant cultural heritage will be desecrated, our beautiful old-growth trees will be logged, rare flora will become extinct and our koalas and endangered species will literally have nowhere else to go.” Sandy Greenwood, Gumbaynggirr Custodian.

This alliance has catalysed around a peaceful protest camp at the entry of the forest. This camp has served as an important place for meetings, events and interviews with journalists.

Are you able to put your name down to help out at camp?

Sign up here to get involved

Whether you’re able to visit once or take on a weekly task—there is something for everyone to do.

“It would be a disaster and a disgrace to see some of our totemic animals like the Koala disappear for motives of greed.

“The ancestral beings gave us our lore, our culture, and taught us how to live in harmony with the land. Everything was precious – we needed these places to survive. If they keep going like this we won’t have forest left. This forest needs to be a sanctuary for our people and other animals.”

Gumbaynggirr spokesperson, Micklo Jarrett.

This campaign to protect Newry State Forest relies on people like you stepping up and working together.

Please sign up here and a camp organiser will get in touch with you about next steps.

In the inspiring words of Sandy Greenwood: “The time to act is now—we will save our forests.”......

Ed Mortimer

Organising Director

Nature Conservation Council of NSW

https://www.nature.org.au/

Telstra-Space X agreement is not welcome news in every corner of Australia

 

Moon, Four Planets, and Emu

an Aboriginal Astronomical constellation that's outlined by dark areas of the Australian night sky. NASA Science, 8 February 2019

Nominally Australian telecommunications corporation Telstra Group and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp aka SpaceX have one thing in common – they both frequently charge too much for the often below par telecommunications/internet services they offer.

Now they have reached an agreement which will likely see the Australian consumers paying more for certain Telstra bundles…..

Telstra Group Ltd, TELSTRA EXCHANGE, 3 July 2023:

In a world-first offering, Telstra will be able to provide home phone service and Starlink broadband services to Aussies as a bundle offer, as well as local tech support and the option of professional installation.

This agreement also provides connectivity options for our business customers, with a higher bandwidth business option available in areas without fixed and mobile connectivity. The business offer will be available to purchase from Telstra both locally and in select countries overseas.

We’re expecting to be able to offer this to customers and businesses towards the end of 2023, when we’ll also be able to share our unique pricing and plan details as well as how basic voice calls will work with our modem which will be offered with the service.

Our network currently uses a mix of technologies to provide voice and broadband services in rural and remote Australia, including nbn fixed broadband, our mobile network and older copper and radio networks.

The addition of Starlink will provide an additional connectivity option for people and businesses in rural and remote locations where distance and terrain make it difficult to provide quality connectivity with existing terrestrial networks.

One of the benefits of LEO satellites are that they are much closer than geostationary satellites to Earth with multiple satellites that are a part of a “constellation”, allowing them to send and receive signals much faster. As well as offering great data throughput, the proximity of these satellites reduces latency making them a great and more consistent option for services that need low latency, like voice and video calls.

The latency, download speeds and general experience in most circumstances will be far superior to copper-based ADSL and be better suited for most modern connectivity needs. Our team has been testing out in the field Starlink’s service and how we can best offer it to customers, including evolving our own modem specifically to support Starlink connectivity and Aussie households. We’re extremely excited to show you what this looks like later in the year….

BACKGROUND

Australian National University, 20 July 2019:

Aboriginal people in Australia have a rich astronomical tradition such as the "Emu in the Sky" constellation of dark clouds, and stories about the Sun, Moon, and stars, revealing a great depth and complexity of ancient Aboriginal cultures. Not only did they know the sky intimately, but they were familiar with planetary motions, tides, and eclipses. Their songs and stories show that Aboriginal Australians sought to understand their Universe in a similar way to modern science. They used this knowledge of the sky to construct calendars, songlines, and other navigational tools, enabling them to navigate across the country, trading artefacts and sacred stories....

Australian National University, 20 April 2022:

Mega-constellations are groupings of satellites that communicate and work together as they orbit Earth.

Since 2018, the Starlink project, run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has launched about 1,700 satellites into low Earth orbit. The company plans to launch another 30,000 over the next decade.

British company OneWeb has launched nearly 150 satellites, with plans for another 6,000. And Amazon intends to launch an additional 3,000 satellites into multiple orbits.

Each of these companies is taking to the skies to increase internet access across the globe. But even if they deliver on this, sky gazers — and especially Indigenous peoples — are left to wonder: at what cost?....

Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites in particular – by sheer weight of numbers contained in some of its own mega-constellations – are reportedly distorting astronomers’ observations.

Currently SpaceX is said to have 3,500 operational satellites in low Earth orbit.

VOX, 29 January 2020:

In the predawn hours of November 18, 2019, Northwestern University astronomer Cliff Johnson noticed a huge swarm of unfamiliar objects streaking across the sky.

That night, Johnson was surveying the Magellanic Clouds — two very dim dwarf galaxies that orbit our own Milky Way galaxy — with the telescopes at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. These galaxies are teaching scientists how stars form, and what happens when two galaxies pass near one another. Johnson was watching them remotely, through a webcam at Fermilab outside of Chicago. “All of a sudden,” he says, “we just start seeing these streaks come across the webcam view. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

The streaks weren’t from the heavens. They were from Earth.

Over five minutes, a train of 19 satellites had crossed into the telescopes’ view, scarring the observation with bright parallel marks, and degrading their scientific value. It didn’t take Johnson and his colleagues long to figure out whose satellites they were: A week earlier, Elon Musk’s SpaceX had launched 60 small satellites into low Earth orbit. Johnson’s colleague, astronomer Clarae Martínez-Vázquez, who was also working that night, vented her frustration on Twitter.

“I am in shock,” she wrote…..

This is what the telescope’s camera caught.

Starlink satellites seen from CTIO. NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/NSF/AURA/CTIO/DELVE

Astronomers are accustomed to satellites occasionally passing into view — one at a time. They don’t ruin observations, per se. But it does take some effort to digitally remove them from the final image.

But 19 satellites? That was unprecedented, leading to 15 to 20 percent of the image being “completely lost,” Johnson says.

What’s more, Johnson worries that the swarm was an omen — of a future where just about every telescope observation conducted at twilight is marred by satellite streaks.

Soon, Earth may be blanketed by tens of thousands of satellites, and they’ll greatly outnumber the approximately 9,000 stars that are visible to an unaided human eye....

"Don't Drown Our Town" banners appearing on Yamba streets as the town waits to see how long and strong this third La Niña will be

Stop The Fill banner in front of retaining wall holding back landfill on a subdivision site in Carrs Drive, Yamba....

IMAGE: NBN News, 18 September 2022

Examples of STOP THE FILL: Don't Down Our Town corflutes out the front of homes on Yamba Rd, The Halyard & Golding Street....

Photographs supplied.

30th Annual Mardi Grass protest is returning to Nimbin next weekend, Friday 16 to Sunday 18 September 2022

 

After being battered by repeated heavy rainfall and flooding earlier this year the little village of Nimbin has scrubbed its face and decided to put on its beads and feathers again.

NBN News, 10 September 2022:

The 30th Annual Mardi Grass protest is returning to Nimbin next weekend. [Friday 16 to Sunday 18 September]

The annual cannabis law reform rally draws hundreds of protestors to Nimbin.

The three-day protest is normally held in May, but was postponed due to the floods this year.

Nimbin, NSW
IMAGE: Insurance Business: Australia, 15 July 2022

Australian Federal Election 2022: after eight and a half years the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has still not delivered a reliable NBN high speed broadband network

(Cartoon by Mark David / @MDavidCartoons)
INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA, 16 February 2022

It’s been eight and a half years since the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government came to power and took a wrecking ball to key policy initiatives of the Rudd & Gillard Governments – solely on the basis that these were programs initiated by the Labor Party.

Even in Opposition, one of the Coalition's targets had been the National Broadband Network (NBN).

However, unlike the price on carbon, it could not erase the NBN but was forced to tolerate its existence.

By 23 September 2020 the Morrison Government and NBN Co had declared the initial rollout of a national high speed broadband network complete and fully operational. Apparently the only thing remaining was to plan for future increases in demand.

NBN Co then closed the door and, to all intents and purposes, walked away from most of the issues both it and the Coalition Government had created by using a patchwork of different connection types to supposedly meet the needs of over 25 million people in homes and businesses scattered across est. 7.692 million square kilometres of widely varying terrain.

In 2021 in response to Internet connection problems in his own electorate a member of the Morrison Government, 

Liberal MP for Berowra Julian Leeser, tabled a private members bill - supported by seventeen MPs and senators - which attempted to make NBN Co more accountable, build better infrastructure and improve customer service.

Julian Leeser, Telecommunications, retrieved 9 May 2022:

In response to the Bill, Choice’s Alan Kirkland said: ‘It’s unacceptable for people who live in a major city like Sydney not to have mobile coverage in their home, and even worse in a bushfire-prone area. We find it puzzling that the telco industry, particularly Telstra, has been able to get away with substandard service for so long.’

Professor Alan Fels, former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, agreed that more needs to be done. He said: ‘For many years the telco industry has failed to make access to mobile phone services universally available, even in a number of suburbs. Yet such access is an essential service and vital in emergencies. After waiting for so long, it is clear that the only solution is legislation, backed by sanctions compelling it.’

That particular private member’s bill appears to have withered on the vine.

Also in 2021 a five-member panel conducted a review of regional telecommunications in Australia. One could be forgiven for wondering about the independence of this panel given a former Nationals MP for Cowper and, a business person who worked on the 2013 Nationals election campaign and previously derived consultancy work from a WA Liberal Government are among its members.

It came as no surprise that there were 16 key findings contained in the December 2021 review report, along with twelve recommendations. Although Finding 10 (highlighted below) raised an eyebrow.

Key Findings

1. Increased coordination and investment between the Australian, state and territory governments is needed to address a ‘patchwork quilt’ approach to connectivity in the regions.

Relates to Recommendations: 1, 2

2. Local councils and other regional stakeholders are increasingly expected to facilitate telecommunications service delivery, but are not appropriately resourced to identify connectivity need and support the deployment of suitable solutions.

Relates to Recommendations: 1, 5

3. Supply side issues, including backbone fibre and spectrum access, are barriers to competition and innovation in regional telecommunications markets.

Relates to Recommendations: 1, 2

4. There is an urgent need to consider the future of the Universal Service Obligation in order to provide reliable voice services to rural and remote consumers.

Relates to Recommendations: 7, 8

5. There are significant issues with the maintenance and repair of telecommunications networks, particularly copper landlines, in regional, rural and remote areas.

Relates to Recommendations: 7, 8

6. In instances of natural disasters and emergencies, connectivity is significantly impacted by power and network outages. This reduces access to recovery and support.

Relates to Recommendations: 3

7. Mobile coverage continues to improve, but expanding reliable coverage to priority areas is becoming more difficult.

Relates to Recommendations: 9, 10

8. Increased ongoing demand for data on regional, rural and remote mobile and fixed wireless networks is not always being met, causing network congestion issues.

Relates to Recommendations: 6, 9

9. Although Sky Muster Plus has improved access to data, Sky Muster users are frustrated by insufficient data allowances, high latency and reliability issues.

Relates to Recommendations: 6

10. Current minimum broadband speeds are mostly adequate, but will need to increase over time.

Relates to Recommendations: 8

There is a certain irony in Finding 10 given that less than one month before the report was delivered to the Minister, review panel member Prof. Hugh Bradlow was tweeting the NBN on 1 November 2021 with this complaint: "Hello @NBN_Australia my Internet at Sandy Point, Vic has been out for 3 full days. Instead of all the excuses on your website (and don't blame the power - it is working just fine) can you actually give a committed time to get it fixed?

11. There are emerging technology options to meet the demand for data but their service performance has not yet been validated.

Relates to Recommendations: 4

12. Regional consumers, businesses and local governments experience difficulty in resolving telecommunications issues and providers are not adequately addressing the complex needs of regional users.

Relates to Recommendations: 5, 7

13. Regional consumers, businesses and local government need access to independent advice and improved connectivity literacy to support them in making informed connectivity choices.

Relates to Recommendations: 1, 5

14. Predictive coverage maps and other public information do not accurately reflect on-the-ground telecommunications experience. There is significant misinformation about the availability of 

telecommunications services.

Relates to Recommendations: 5, 9

15. The cost of telecommunications services remains high for vulnerable groups in remote Australia. This is impacting on their access to essential services.

Relates to Recommendations: 11, 12

16. Continued engagement with Indigenous Australians in regional, rural and remote communities is needed to address ongoing issues of access, affordability and digital ability.

Relates to Recommendations: 5, 11, 12

Over a year after the Morrison Government declared the high broadband network a success it was very evident that it was far from having that status.

Indeed, in some quarters opinion had been scathing.

InnovationAus.com: Public Policy and Business Innovation, 4 November 2021:

This week, Telstra claimed its 5G home broadband service will offer average speeds of 378 megabits per second to homes and businesses. In contrast, the average maximum speed on Fibre to the Node is 67 megabits per second, and up to 200,000 premises on the copper NBN can’t even get 25 megabits.

Imagine spending $50 billion on a copper dominated network, that’s not delivering minimum speeds required under law, and already losing its competitiveness.

That is the anti-genius of Liberal-National Party. Deceive. Implement bad technology policy at higher cost. Then spend more money to correct their mistakes. They led us down this path on broadband, and now want to do it with energy.

In 2013 the Liberals produced “modelling” known as the NBN strategic review. This elaborate sham had a sole purpose: provide political cover for abandoning fibre.

This document was then used to claim a multi-technology mix of second-rate technologies was going to be $30 billion cheaper than a full-fibre NBN.

This untruth, repeated at nauseum, relied on two tricks.

The first was pretending the copper dominated network being rolled out costs $41 billion. False. It is costing $57 billion.

The second was to claim the original plan to deploy a fibre network to 93 per cent of Australia would cost $72 billion, rather than the near $50 billion forecast under Labor.

The latter claim, which the Liberals clung to desperately, was decimated in a front-page report in the Sydney Morning Herald in February 2021.

It revealed that in late 2013 the Liberals were explicitly told deploying Fibre to the Premises was dramatically cheaper than what they claimed in public.

That advice was redacted and kept secret for seven years, and it is clear why.

If the redacted costs for fibre, along with real-world interest rates, were fed back into the strategic review “modelling”, the original fibre rollout would have cost around $53 billion.

Notably, Minister Fletcher stopped repeating his $30 billion claim since the unredacted extracts appeared in print, because he always knew it to be false.

The NBN copper rollout has now become a business case liability and looks increasingly uncompetitive against 5G.

The NBN HFC network, which relies on Foxtel Pay TV infrastructure, is arguably the most expensive and unreliable deployment of its sort in the world.

Tens of thousands of Fibre to the Curb modems across the country are also frying during storms because lightning is being conducted over the copper that leads into the home.

The government is now saying Fibre to the Curb technology will not deliver gigabit speeds, despite promising it would only a year ago.

Every fixed-line technology deployed by the Coalition is beset by technical or business case problems, except for Fibre to the Premises – Labor’s original technology of choice.

As the 2022 federal election date drew nearer the Morrison Government on 23 March bestirred itself enough to announce that:

The Morrison Government has welcomed NBN Co’s announcement that 50,000 homes and businesses will be able to order an upgrade to their NBN connection, delivering ultra-fast speeds at no upfront cost.

These are the initial customers to have access to upgrades that will allow 8 million homes, or 75 per cent of premises in the NBN fixed line footprint, to access to ultra-fast speeds by 2023.

Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, the Hon Paul Fletcher, said the on-demand upgrades will give more Australians access to the fastest broadband speeds available on the NBN.

There is no mention of ongoing costs and pricing which remain an issue.

I am honestly not sure that this is anything more than a typical election year 'announceable' which will sink down into the pile of past unmet expectations raised concerning NBN high speed broadband.

Regardless of whatever media releases the Morrison Government is sending out, the dissatisfaction with the NBN high speed broadband network remains 12 days out from election day…..

The Guardian, 8 May 2022:

The NBN rollout may have been completed, but Richard Proudfoot is still using an old ADSL internet connection, and he has to juggle his Zoom meetings around his partner’s work.

He runs a small IT business from his home in Maleny, on the Sunshine Coast, about 100km north of Brisbane, while his partner is a part-time university lecturer.

Due to their property’s terrain, NBN Co has told him he is not able to connect to fixed wireless or fixed line. While he has the option of satellite, many users have reported poor speeds and reliability. He has stuck with ADSL for the time being because he believes the tree cover and weather would adversely effect his service.

“We are very, very dependent on a reliable internet ADSL connection. To make it work for us given the limitations, we schedule internet use based on need ... we cannot do concurrent Zoom meetings so we rearrange diaries in order to cope.”

The Coalition and NBN Co declared the rollout of the then $51bn network complete in 2020. There are now 12.1m homes able to connect, and 8.5m homes on the NBN.

The high-speed network was meant to resolve the digital divide in Australia, but two years on from its completion there remains a stark difference between the haves and have-nots; those who have a decent internet service and those still waiting or suffering from poor speeds and reliability on their NBN service.

The Liberal MP Julian Leeser wrote a scathing review of the NBN in a submission to the federal government’s regional telecommunications review last year, describing it as “too slow with countless delays”.

Leeser’s northern Sydney electorate, Berowra, is a mix of suburban and semi-regional locations, meaning his constituents are living with the spectrum of NBN technologies, from fixed to wireless and satellite.

“There is too much variability in the quality of coverage across the various NBN technologies,” he said.

The pandemic forced many people to work from home and rely on their home internet more than ever before.

Leeser said that teachers had been forced to work out of McDonald’s car parks to leech the wifi for online classes, people were unable to work from home or undertake telehealth appointments, and some had even been forced to move out of the area due to their poor NBN connection…...

Many Guardian Australia readers raised problems with the project when asked what their major concerns were ahead of this month’s federal election.

One reader, Cate, who lives in Killarney Heights in the Sydney electorate of Warringah, missed out on full fibre or cable that some nearby suburbs have access to.

She says she was originally connected via the Optus internet cable but was moved over to fibre-to-the-node (FttN) on the NBN.

“Using Optus cable we rarely had dropouts. I could count on one hand the number of times over five years that we lost internet for any noticeable length of time,” she says.

Now she says they experience daily interruptions.

“Our modem takes five to 10 minutes to reconnect so this can often mean at least 25 to 50 minutes a day of disruption to our service and this is still considered acceptable by NBN and they will do nothing to fix it.”

She says she is rarely able to get the top speeds promised. In speed test results Cate provided to Guardian Australia taken between 2pm and 3pm on a weekday, the results ranged from 1.3Mbps to 40Mbps, compared to 100Mbps on her previous Optus cable…..

Around 119,000 premises that are connected to the NBN via FttN still can’t get the minimum 25Mbps download and 5Mbps upload speeds. Due to the ageing copper and environmental conditions, FttN connections will continue to get worse over time.

In February, the NBN CEO, Stephen Rue, admitted the bit rate – the number of bits that can be transferred across the network per second – would degrade between 2% and 4% every year on average across the 4m FttN connections.

The other looming factor is people switching the NBN off. Customers frustrated with the NBN might look to 5G or another service like Elon Musk’s Starlink, and threaten the ability of the network to make a return on the taxpayer investment.…...

Something to think about standing in line at the polling booths on Saturday 21 May 2022.