No more Oz $ <-> US$ <-> China Yuan

[GK]

the ruling elite nurture their puppets into office, then the selected puppet reads the teleprompter after being elected

the ruling elite are so successful in their character assassinations  that they leave no doubt that its far better to vote for complete corruption than to waste your votes on changing anything

status quo forever, and don't whine about what results, you caused it by not having a mind of your own (you being the general population)

Yeah no worries mate.

[EEVblog]

Is it irresponsible to not enroll to vote? I haven't yet as I don't particularly like any of the choices presented.

Sure, but the fun part is you can vote against the biggest idiot you hate, and help get them booted out. Worth turning up just for that 

I've been thinking about running, just for kicks, so I could tweet a photo of my name on the ballot 
If I got enough votes (but not win), the taxpayers would foot the bill for my next campaign.

[EEVblog]

Friends of mine don't actually vote. They go to a polling booth, get a tick next to their name in the roll, place the empty ballot papers in the boxes and walk out. This is apparently legal.

I don't know why?
Why not give your vote to some independent, or one of the silly joke parties?

BTW, "Donkey Vote" is an official term used by the AEC:
http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/Compulsory_Voting.htm
And the Macquarie dictionary defines the term as numbering the candidates on the ballot in the same order as they are listed.
A blank (or defaced!) form is an "informal vote".
But Donkey Vote is often used to describe both.

We have quite a high rate in Sydney:
www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees%3Furl%3Dem/elect10/report/chapter9.pdf

[TerraHertz]

Friends of mine don't actually vote. They go to a polling booth, get a tick next to their name in the roll, place the empty ballot papers in the boxes and walk out. This is apparently legal.

I don't know why?
Why not give your vote to some independent, or one of the silly joke parties?

Because your vote will ultimately be redistributed to one of the major parties anyway. Thats the way our vote counting system works. If you vote [1] Jack-the-clown, then 2, 3, 4, etc for the groups you don't like, when Jack fails to get a significant proportion of the vote your vote slip is transfered to the next down your list of preferences. If that guy also fails to get a significant fraction, your slip is transfered again. And so on.

The problem with this is that you can't avoid ultimately voting for people you loathe. For instance with both major parties supporting the US foreign wars, some people (me included) absolutely can't morally allow our vote to go to either labor or liberal.

Years ago someone figured out that if you numbered your voting slip 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3... it fixed this problem, Your vote was valid (you'd numbered every square), and you'd voted for the one or two guys you liked, but then your vote slip couldn't be reallocated to the guys you hated.
This system was catching on, and was becoming a threat to maintenance of the illusion that the majority of people found one or the other of the two major parties acceptable. So the government banned it.

The election year they banned it, I went to the trouble to get a JP to witness me casting a (banned) 1,2,3,3,3... type vote. So I've got a legally solid proof of having my perfectly good vote disenfranchised (since it would be counted as informal, ie discarded under the new law.)

Too bad there's no way do anything about it.

It's another example of the system being morally screwed. If you cast a blank or defaced vote, you're aiding evil by inaction. If you cast a valid vote, you can't avoid voting for evil.
Personally I look forward to the year only lead weighted votes count.

[EEVblog]

Too bad there's no way do anything about it.

Yes, there is. Get over it and continue to vote until one of the independents actually votes enough votes to get elected in!
It's attitudes like the one you are suggesting that is the reason why the system never gets fixed. The attitude of hopelessness is self perpetuating.
Using the old preferential voting system excuse is just a cop out.
When it comes down to it, we have a system were essentially the person with the most number of votes wins. They can't win if you don't vote for them.

It's worse in the US where a majority of people think their vote is "wasted" if they vote for an independent.

[TerraHertz]

Too bad there's no way do anything about it.

Yes, there is. Get over it and continue to vote until one of the independents actually votes enough votes to get elected in!

You misunderstand. I meant I wanted to mount a legal case over having my perfectly good vote disenfranchised, even if it meant going to an international court. But my resources were insufficient. I do vote, for the reasons you give. Lesser of two evils, etc. But it still burns, that my vote ultimately goes to support people complicit in mass murder and the destruction of entire, innocent nations. DU weapons... sigh.

It's attitudes like the one you are suggesting that is the reason why the system never gets fixed. The attitude of hopelessness is self perpetuating.

You are starting to show a bit of personal bias there Dave. Do you really think I sound like someone with a hopeless, apathetic attitude, prone to inaction?

 

Using the old preferential voting system excuse is just a cop out.
When it comes down to it, we have a system were essentially the person with the most number of votes wins. They can't win if you don't vote for them.

It's worse in the US where a majority of people think their vote is "wasted" if they vote for an independent.

Please don't point at the US system as an example of anything other than utter, vile and perverted brokenness.

Btw, speaking of minor parties, I have a story from the early days of the Greens party in Sydney. I was attending all the early public meetings, which iirc were held in a public hall in Balmain. A very interesting event occurred.
Those early meetings were attended by honest, well-meaning, generally competent ordinary people, who genuinely believed there was a chance of creating an uncorrupted viable third party. The meetings were well run, operating along the lines of Roberts rules of committee - a chairperson, formal movements, clear voting, minutes carried forward, etc. It was going very well, the new party had a clear and sensible platform, attendance was rising, the group was getting a lot of media coverage and donations.

Then all of a sudden... at one meeting there was an astonishing number of new faces. Curiously, they all seemed to be dressed as if they'd gotten up that morning and gone through their wardrobe looking for anything to make themselves look like 'trendy political progressives'. (None of the regular attendees were like that.) Scarves, beanies, Che badges, whatever. They were all extremely vocal and not a trace of shyness in loudly addressing a public meeting. As if they'd all had training in public speaking. They cooperated and supported each other, and were easily able to manipulate the meeting. Kind of like Zerg rushing, except no one had that concept label back then. Just about the very first thing they did, was propose and pass a resolution switching the meeting format from Roberts Rules to something they called 'consensus voting'. They all seemed to understand implicitly what this was. The rest of us learned.... it meant the most vocal, externally organized group rules.
From that day on, forever, The Greens were a subverted organization. A front, predominantly controlled by TPTB, as a pretense that there's some valid 'opposition' to the status quo.

The best way to control the opposition, is to BE the opposition.

I could tell you some interesting things about the One Nation party's origins too.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Is it irresponsible to not enroll to vote? I haven't yet as I don't particularly like any of the choices presented.

Sure, but the fun part is you can vote against the biggest idiot you hate, and help get them booted out. Worth turning up just for that 

I've been thinking about running, just for kicks, so I could tweet a photo of my name on the ballot 
If I got enough votes (but not win), the taxpayers would foot the bill for my next campaign.

I just spilt bourbon all over the place!

Dave, you are highly talented and very good at a lot of things.

However, you and politics...

 

You wouldn't like what they'd do to you anyhow.

[EEVblog]

But it still burns, that my vote ultimately goes to support people complicit in mass murder and the destruction of entire, innocent nations. DU weapons... sigh.

In the case you stated, it didn't, you said it yourself. Your vote was invalid.
So you have now given up doing that and cast a valid vote?

[SeanB]

Enter Dave, nothing to lose other than needing a few hundred signatures ( probably doable just from the Aus blog members and friends) and then you are in the running.

[AlfBaz]

First point of order. If the libs win, renaming the NBN to NNN. National Narrow band Network 

[EEVblog]

First point of order. If the libs win, renaming the NBN to NNN. National Narrow band Network 

       

[TerraHertz]

Call me paranoid if you like, but I can't help feeling a sense of doom every time the NBN is mentioned. The idea of a government running the design and implementation of a shiny new national Internet infrastructure... which ultimately will push aside the existing infrastructure that the government can't control. I don't think it will matter much which of the two major pretend-democracy parties are running it. It will still be used to gradually lock everything down tighter and tighter.

The Australian government, that in the early days of the internet was seriously proposing to contract Microsoft to provide ALL internet services to Australia, via MS servers in the USA?
The government, who wanted to charge higher phone bills for people who were using modems to log into BBSs?
The government that wanted to make public use of encrypted electronic communications a criminal offense?
The government who recently wanted to force ISPs to implement a mandatory black list of web sites; a blacklist that the government would give them?

There are more examples, I just can't recall all of them right now.

Oh wait, here's a good one.
Years ago I had a friend who worked as a programmer at Telstra. To date this, I was in his office one day and he showed me Mosaic running - the first time I'd ever seen a web browser. One of his colleagues was away on holiday, so my friend let me sit in that office for a couple of hours having my first experience of the Internet. At one point I got curious about the papers sitting on that guy's desk, and had a quick read.
They were the design for a system Telstra was implementing on the phone system servers. Which have 'data quality maintenance access' to the data streams of ALL phone connections. They were building a system to have software analyze EVERY SINGLE CONNECTION, and categorize it in a tree of data types. Whether it was voice or data. If data, what format - modem, fax, etc. If modem, what baud rate and standard. Once that was determined, to examine the user data and determine if encryption was being used. And then to determine what type of encryption.

This was around the time the government was talking in general terms of making encryption illegal. So, they weren't just raising the issue, they (together with Telstra) were actually implementing the methods to enforce it. For all I/we know, they may have actually rolled it out, just waiting for the enabling legislation. (I can't ask my friend, because he died a few years later.)

I wish I'd been a bit more nimble, and thought to photocopy a few choice pages. But didn't think of that till after leaving. Wasn't terribly savvy about government's total-control fantasies in those days.

Forgive me if I never trust these bastards now.

[EEVblog]

Call me paranoid if you like, but I can't help feeling a sense of doom every time the NBN is mentioned. The idea of a government running the design and implementation of a shiny new national Internet infrastructure...

So what's your solution?

Yes, they'll almost certainly cock something up.
Yes, they'll almost certainly overspend.
Yes, they'll almost certainly try (but will fail) and slip in pull some right-wing lobby group's pet idea (like filtering)
Nothing new there.

There are two issues here.
1) The rollout of fibre to every home to secure this countries communications future.
2) Actually designing and running the whole shebang

If our $40BN just got fibre to every home it's money ultimately well spent IMO.

There is nothing wrong with the government owning the company that installs it, and also designs and runs it, in fact, IMO, that's how all essential community infrastructure should be (telecoms, water, sewage, roads, and power). Owned by the government, a.k.a the people.

[peter.mitchell]

What I don't like about the criticism of this government's NBN plan  is;

Often criticized for poor progress. The criticism comes from the people who are trying everything in their power to slow it down, it's like you chasing and trying to tie lead weights to someones legs while they're running a marathon, and then saying "ha, you suck, you're slowwww"

Often criticized for poor price estimates. As the contractors, pricing committees and analysts used would be essentially the same if the opposition did a cost analysis, their estimates would likely be off by the same factor.

Essentially, regardless of which plan for the NBN, it would take a long time, cost a lot of money and suffer the same problems regardless of party, because thats how government funded projects go, contractors say "woo, Govt, how much can we charge for how little we do" then they get paid to do it. Essentially it comes down to "do you want to pay $20bn for a half assed job or $40bn for a good job, and you have to choose one, there is no backing out", personally, i'd say stuff it, if we have to pay, may as well get the good one.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Angry much?

Serves you right for believing either gummit would actually build something.

 

[EEVblog]

What I don't like about the criticism of this government's NBN plan  is;
Often criticized for poor progress. The criticism comes from the people who are trying everything in their power to slow it down, it's like you chasing and trying to tie lead weights to someones legs while they're running a marathon, and then saying "ha, you suck, you're slowwww"
Often criticized for poor price estimates. As the contractors, pricing committees and analysts used would be essentially the same if the opposition did a cost analysis, their estimates would likely be off by the same factor.

I agree. It's probably the biggest infrastructure project in Australia's history, with plenty of unknowns. Who'd wanna be the one to estimate the cost and time on that? Is there a pissing up the flag pole emoticon?
It's a critical long project for our countries long term viability, and must/should be done at almost any cost, without any thought to how long it takes. The benefits will pay off over the next 50-100 years.
My hat is actually off to the current government for proposing a project that is beyond the election cycle, it's pretty rare that they do that.

[peter.mitchell]

http://m.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/blunt-instrument/free-floppies-a-policy-flop-20130410-2hldq.html

Regardless of what political party you side with, THAT is funny.

[EEVblog]

http://m.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/blunt-instrument/free-floppies-a-policy-flop-20130410-2hldq.html
Regardless of what political party you side with, THAT is funny.

*snort* 

[TerraHertz]

http://m.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/blunt-instrument/free-floppies-a-policy-flop-20130410-2hldq.html

Regardless of what political party you side with, THAT is funny.

Heh. Looks like smh is trying to compete with The Onion.
If I cared about any of these jokers, I could point out the article is ad hominem combined with well-poisoning, but meh.

In reply to Dave's "So what's your solution?"
a. I don't need to have a solution, to have an opinion the present path is probably going to work out badly.

b. One good step towards a solution would be to remove legal restrictions on who can provide telecommunications services. For cable there's no need for spectrum allocation or any such controls. No licensing, no nothing. Just let the market do whatever it wants. Private line-of-sight laser linked local mesh networks, private local copper/fiber LANs/WANs, anything.

c. The biggest infrastructure investment we already have, is Telstra's underground ducts. Use them.

d. I agree getting fiber to every home (including in the outback) is #1 priority. But I don't see this as an excuse for ending up with a system in which the government controls the routing hardware.

e. Allowing the massive investment in co-ax cable TV/net hardware dangling from the street poles, was hugely stupid. At some point all that crap is going to have to be taken down and sent to recycling.

f. Yes, I agree large scale civil infrastructure (water, power, sewage, gas) should be government run. And selling such stuff off to corporate interests was/is a treasonous betrayal of the Australian people. But I'm not so sure about communications infrastructure. It wouldn't be good to have the government (or any small group, hint hint) controlling all newspapers, etc. Same goes for telecommunications, in an age when content is easily monitored and blocked based on content.

g. Any telecommunications architecture that fundamentally includes DRM controls, media content rental, etc, is going to be obsolete after the revolution. Say what you like, but that's going to be the case. Our civilization has to get over this unworkable idea that data can be owned and rented out, or it's going to end in some nasty way.

Nobody is going to try and manipulate the knowledge content of your water or gas pipe. But your internet content - everyone from your local church zealots up to the Rothschilds wants to control that in the baddest way. A net infrastructure has to be designed to STOP that happening, not assist it.

Simple litmus test. Does the NBN allow individuals to realistically run publicly accessible web/ftp servers at home, with useful outgoing bandwidth, no extra cost, and no way for anyone else to restrict the content? I don't know. But I bet it doesn't. When asked, watch them switch from boasting about nearly limitless bandwidths, to talking about how intrinsic bandwidth limitations make such usage infeasible.

Every time I go to the cinema and see the paid 'shiny happy people in a perfect world' advertisements for how excellent the NBN is going to be, my forebodings about this get worse.

[DrGeoff]

If our $40BN just got fibre to every home it's money ultimately well spent IMO.

There is nothing wrong with the government owning the company that installs it, and also designs and runs it, in fact, IMO, that's how all essential community infrastructure should be (telecoms, water, sewage, roads, and power). Owned by the government, a.k.a the people.

I heard Conroy say the other day that the money being put in by the Government is only a loan, and will be paid back by NBN Co (with interest) from operating revenue. If so then the taxpayer is not burdened with the infrastructure cost, only an investment loan.

NBN Co is likely to be sold off in a public float eventually, however it is not permitted to compete in the retail environment, only provide wholesale bandwidth.

[jhalar]

Simple litmus test. Does the NBN allow individuals to realistically run publicly accessible web/ftp servers at home, with useful outgoing bandwidth, no extra cost, and no way for anyone else to restrict the content? I don't know. But I bet it doesn't. When asked, watch them switch from boasting about nearly limitless bandwidths, to talking about how intrinsic bandwidth limitations make such usage infeasible.

Its up to the rules for your chosen ISP and plan as they control the layer 3 routing for your premises after your NBN POI.
If one RSP does not allow you to have servers at home switch to another RSP that does.

The NBN is only providing a layer 2 bitstream service, they do not care what is transmitted.

[EEVblog]

For cable there's no need for spectrum allocation or any such controls. No licensing, no nothing. Just let the market do whatever it wants.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but those cables (Optus/Foxtel) were installed by (and hence owned by) private corporations.

e. Allowing the massive investment in co-ax cable TV/net hardware dangling from the street poles, was hugely stupid. At some point all that crap is going to have to be taken down and sent to recycling.

I agree in principle, we should have done the NBN fibre solution a long time ago.
But in my case, that cable is the ONLY way I can get any sort of reliable internet connection at my home, so I can't really complain.

f. Yes, I agree large scale civil infrastructure (water, power, sewage, gas) should be government run. And selling such stuff off to corporate interests was/is a treasonous betrayal of the Australian people. But I'm not so sure about communications infrastructure. It wouldn't be good to have the government (or any small group, hint hint) controlling all newspapers, etc. Same goes for telecommunications, in an age when content is easily monitored and blocked based on content.

But that fibre is just like your water pipe or power cables, no difference.
Yes, if they control the infrastructure they can control what you can access, but remember that the people control the government. I'd rather have the government (i.e. me and you) own it and run it, than some privite corporation.
The government at any time can make a law to direct the private companies to control the information too, so the issue remains either way.

Nobody is going to try and manipulate the knowledge content of your water or gas pipe. But your internet content - everyone from your local church zealots up to the Rothschilds wants to control that in the baddest way. A net infrastructure has to be designed to STOP that happening, not assist it.

You'll get no argument from me.

Simple litmus test. Does the NBN allow individuals to realistically run publicly accessible web/ftp servers at home, with useful outgoing bandwidth, no extra cost, and no way for anyone else to restrict the content? I don't know.

So once again, what it your solution?
I don't think there is anything major stopping some private company getting equal rights to installing fibre to your home too in competition with the NBN. If there is then we as citizens need to put pressure on your elected government to allow that to happen if needed.
But when putting fibre to every home costs $50BN+, you have to be realistic about how much freedom in competition you can realistically have in your base communications infrastructure.

Once the NBN is built and running, if you don't like how it's run, then put pressure on and vote for the candidate that will push for those changes.

[Ferroto]

First point of order. If the libs win, renaming the NBN to NNN. National Narrow band Network 

We finally got Fiber in my small canadian town and I went from 600kbps(ADSL) to 50Mbps(Fiber) Trust me fiber internet is worth fighting for.

[Ed.Kloonk]

First point of order. If the libs win, renaming the NBN to NNN. National Narrow band Network 

We finally got Fiber in my small canadian town and I went from 600kbps(ADSL) to 50Mbps(Fiber) Trust me fiber internet is worth fighting for.