- From: The Australian
- October 25, 2010
Responding to calls, particularly from The Australian, for more financial accountability from what is the biggest and most expensive infrastructure project in the country's history, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has attacked suggestions that consumers may have to pay thousands of dollars to have their homes rewired to gain maximum advantage from NBN's high-speed fibre cable.
Neither Conroy nor the head of the government-owned NBN Co, Mike Quigley, who has also pooh-poohed these claims, will say what the extent and cost of rewiring will be. But this debate over cost is masking the sleeper in this project: the degree of control this government-owned monopoly will be able to exercise on the flow of information into the homes of all Australians.
After all, if things go according to plan, NBN Co will be Australia's communications gatekeeper, owned and driven by a government that favours internet censorship.
The consequences of this in a democracy raise potentially disturbing issues affecting the free flow of information that go well beyond dollars and cents. In effect, the NBN rollout gives the government the ability to determine what content is suitable for delivery into the home -- a situation not dissimilar from that which operates in China.
In the face of mounting hostility [read on after the jump: The Australian]
What can I do? Contact Senator Conroy here, and announce your intention to campaign against him next election.