Is Optic-Fibre Already There?
Nationals dream of new bush network The Nationals are talking about the proceeds from the sale of Telstra being used to creat a fibre-optic network in the bush
When I was in the Northern Territory last year I had a lengthy conversation with a Telstra foreman who had a large crew in the Gulf country laying optic-fibre lines to link up Aborigines with the world. This was at Gregory Downs and is about as ‘Bush’ as you can get
The article had a lot to say about wasting funds but the crew were laying optic-fibre networks.
Mick, (not his real name) the Telstra manager, told us horror stories of dealing with the local indigenous population. Cultural monitors demand $300 per day for their presence at any work site. Once the monitors on any Telstra job exceed 6 then there is a Cultural Monitor Supervisor who gets paid in excess of a $1,000 per day to make sure the monitors are doing their job. Telstra are expected to have an Archeologist on site as well and he is charged with ensuring the Optic Fibre lines are not desecrating culturally significant sites. Stories of the Archeologist picking up a rock and saying? ?This looks like an old axe? or whatever, and the monitor saying ?Is it? Oh yeah. You fellows have to go around? Ah, such science. Four D11 dozers are used on an optic fibre line. One to clear the scrub, one to level the path, one to rip the trench and one to fill. These things cost thousands of dollars per day so I would hate to think of the costs associated with rerouting the line a kilometre or two around a culturally significant piece of rock. The fibre optics get to a mission and Mick tells me that Telstra gives all the locals CDMA phones. Do they pay for them? No Do they pay for their calls? NoIs there any reader with more knowledge on this subject Is there an optic-fibre network already being laid in the bush? If there is, is it only to Aborigine missions and if so, why? Is the network actually being laid past white-fella towns or properties? I wonder.
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The Nationals’ proposal is just garbage. Fibre optic cable would have capacity far in excess of even peak demand. It would be like building a dual-lane freeway to every farmer’s house.
As for the Aboriginal land business, I wouldn’t know, but I can well imagine it. I think there’s an awful lot of “We’ll just make them pay”-type attitude amongst the more militant, who are of course likely to be the ones who end up as cultural consultants or archaeologists of Indigenous relics. After all, if these things are so significant, why not ask the communities to map them out so Telstra could plan their cabling in advance, rather than on the run?
there was a bit of a ruckus not long ago about the new dam site on the burnett river near maryborough- they had to hire “cultural consultants” at about $500 a day, and it turned out they weren’t even from the local tribal group. Held up work constantly either farting about with some stick they’d found, or just dissapeared on the piss for days at a time. It’d be hilarious if it was happening somewhere else and we weren’t paying for it. I could cop a bit of dispossession for a grand a day.