In a letter to The Australian Pauline McCarthy from Kingswood, SA has her say.

Back in the 1950s, copper wire was rolled out in our suburb, but it was not until the early 60s that we could afford the telephone. It changed my life, for with three pennies knotted in a hankie I was able to freewheel through the illicit delights of adolescence. But the telephone was essential for our neighbourhood schools, the hospital, business and industry. It’s the same today. The ordinary homeowner may not see the necessity of the NBN, but as a school teacher, I can tell you it’s essential. Whenever we have two classes on line in our primary school, the rest of us have to whistle Dixie interminably. It’s the local businesses, hospital and schools which need this rollout. Soon our students will be adults, and then broadband connection will be as endemic as the old dial-up telephone became.

I think Pauline is a bit taken up with her being a teacher as she points out she is much smarter than the ordinary homeowners but she really misses the point that these non Dip Ed punters are making. Her case is for for improved broadband, not NBN, and no thinking person would argue that isn’t a good cause. What people are arguing about is the cost of the NBN as proposed by the ALP. Do we go from the current situation straight to $50 odd billion or is there a solution somewhere in between and do we put all our eggs in the fiber optics basket or is wireless broadband going to improve as the younger generation throw off the shackles of being tied to the home. Reasonable questions that the ALP refuse to answer while it would appear that Pauline isn’t even aware that the questions exist.

THE committee being created to scrutinise the taxpayer-funded National Broadband Network will be stacked with Labor MPs and not operate until July.

The committee – promised by Julia Gillard to secure the support of independent senator Nick Xenophon for crucial legislation to end Telstra’s market dominance and pave the way for the NBN – will have 16 members, of whom nine will be Labor-nominated. It will be chaired by independent Rob Oakeshott.

With Oakeshott chairing and a labor majority it will produce no scrutiny. Nothing to see here – just move on

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.