Episode 43! Full Moon! Cnuts and NBN questions please!

Cnut of the Week graphic

Yes, yes, yes. It’s Thursday. Yes, there’s a Stilgherrian Live tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time. And yes, it’s time to start nominating people or things for “Cnut of the Week”.

Remember the rules. We’re looking for people, organisations or other entities who are futile trying to hold back the tide of change. It has to be something in the news in the last week, and you have to explain yourself. Nominees have to be not merely doing bad things, but failing to notice or adapt to the change around them.

As always, nominations close at 8.30pm Sydney time sharp, and you must nominate on the website to count. Who do you nominate, and why?

I’ll also be doing a backgrounder and Q&A on Australia’s proposed National Broadband Network, so add your questions and comments for that too.

16 Replies to “Episode 43! Full Moon! Cnuts and NBN questions please!”

  1. Bit of a specific one. So probably won’t get up. But I want to have it on record at least:

    I nominate http://www.tams.act.gov.au/ the ACT dept of Territory and Municipal Services for listing only snail-mail and a fax number on their forms.

  2. Nick Minchin – A big infrastructure announcement from the Government required a big, clear response from the Opposition.

    Minchin looked and sounded like a modern day Luddite and totally wasted any opportunity to provide a clear, winnable argument.

  3. Either or both of Australia’s “No Boys”: Senator Nick Minchin and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull.

    Minchin barely seems to understand the tide of change, or even how we got into this mess, but appears to be entirely dedicated to standing in its way.

    Turnbull allows (and perhaps encourages) his party to adopt this foolish “no hostages” strategy, depriving us of both the direction the majority voted for and thoughtful opposition contribution to it.

  4. I nominate the Federal Liberal Party of Australia for Cnut of the Week. Even the Nats want to get in on the NBN, but the Liberals, led by former ISP-Chairman Malcolm Turnbull? Nope, sorry. Apparently the Libs were against the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and the Snowy Mountains Hydro scheme, which makes me think they’re actually somewhere to the left of the Greens.

  5. I also wish to nominate the Liberal Party for their immediate and vehement opposition to the government’s proposed NBN project (as delivered by their leader, Malcolm Turnbull). Infrastructure! It’s so important to a country – transport, power, communications. Yet the Libs seem bent on insisting that it all has to be run by private companies and driven by big profits. I listened to Turnbull yesterday and I understood him to mean that unless we can prove the NBN will be highly profitable as a commercial venture then Australians can learn to live without this technology. I think the party as a whole deserve to be Cnut of the Week!

  6. Oh dear, I am also going to have to nominate Malcolm Turnbull. Not for saying “no”, but for being unable to provide any decent alternatives when saying “no”.

  7. Stephen Conroy, again, for telling JJJ that ‘the way to run a trial’ is to not have any criteria for assessing its success or failure until after it’s concluded, and then getting pissy when the interviewer dared to suggest otherwise.

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