The new paradigm

We now have the ridiculous situation where the house goes to a great amount of effort to pass a motion telling MPs to do what they should be doing anyway – that is, talk to their electorate and gauge their feelings on a particular issue. In this case – gay marriage. Talk about distractions. We could be talking about Gillard’s refusal to release any thing remotely connected with the NBN before December this year. Or more importantly, not releasing anything until after the House breaks for Christmas. What I’m having trouble with at the moment is the fact that over two months ago we have had a much heralded “successful role out” of the NBN in Tasmania which would suggest to me that the ALP are simply going ahead with it in spite of the fact that enabling legislation separating Telstra’s retail and wholesale arms (deemed necessary for the NBN to work) is still locked in the Senate. Industry leaders, ex Telstra board members and a host of other senior level managers are also questioning the scheme and government is still vetting the findings of the yet-to-be-released NBN Co business case. Admittedly everyone has an agenda, particularly the Telstra guys, but to my way of thinking we are committed before we, the voters, have been convinced of the financial viability of the scheme. Every day the ALP refuse to release details reinforces public perceptions that they have something to hide Legislation not passed…..business case still pending…..trying to force MPs to seven years three years two weeks secret squirrel undertakings on a business plan brief all smacks of “we haven’t worked it all out yet” The House, the Senate, the media and all us interested voters should be discussing matters of importance but no, instead the House was forced to spend valuable time last week actually discussing the Greens dream-sheet as they look to re-engineer our society to fit their strange and wacky ways. The media and blogs were all over it and hardly a mention was made during the preceding week of matters that are important to the country. I have written on the matter of gay marriages over seven years ago and will not waste any more time on the matter.