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Rudd government delivers yesterday’s broadband

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One of the Rudd government’s election promises was a national fibre-to-the-node (FttN) broadband network, putting at least 12Mb/sec download speeds within reach of 98% of the Australian population. Tuesday night’s Federal Budget kept that promise. I think.

Here’s how I wrote about it for Crikey yesterday:

Of $4.7b promised for the National Broadband Network, only 0.16% has been committed: $2.1m this financial year and $5.2m next for “establishment and implementation”. The remaining 99.84% — you know, actually building the thing — is all “nfp”. Not for publication. We’ll get back to you.

Spending is now “up to” the pre-election $4.7b figure. Broadband is competing with run-down roads, railways and ports for a share of the $20b Building Australia Fund, where “disbursements… will be subject to budget consideration, and will be spent responsibly, in line with prevailing macroeconomic conditions.”

Whatever the final budget, Australia will still be rolling out a 12Mb/sec network in 2012. Other countries are rolling out 100Mb/sec networks now.

It really is building yesterday’s network, isn’t it.

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Tax changes work against innovation

Two tax changes announced in Tuesday’s Federal Budget actually work against business innovation. Businesses must now depreciate their computer software over 4 years, not 2.5. This pulls in $1.3b in tax but discourages upgrading. (However it might be good news for vendors of software as a service and proponents of open source software.) Similarly, Fringe Benefits Tax rules for laptops and PDAs given to employees have been tightened, discouraging a more flexible, mobile workforce. I thought we were meant to be building for the future…

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Budget explains Internet censorship plan, a bit

The vagueness of the Labor government’s planned kid-friendly “clean feed” Internet become a tiny bit less vague last night. The Federal Budget dumped Howard’s NetAlert scheme and replaced it with a $125.8 million Cyber-safety Plan.

Budget Paper No. 2 says there’ll be “a range of initiatives to combat online threats and protect children from inappropriate material on the internet.” There will be ISP-level filtering of “an expanded Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist” — which presumably means the already-illegal material such as child pornography — plus an “examination of options to allow families to exclude other unwanted content”.

To me, this implies that families will be in control of their Internet filtering, and it’ll be opt-in. As it should be. Presumably this will become clearer once the “options” are “examined”.

The plan includes other measures “such as”:

  • an education program for teachers and the community
  • a Youth Advisory Group to assist the Government to formulate age-appropriate measures to
    protect children
  • an expanded Consultative Working Group focussed on cyber-safety issues,
  • a dedicated website for children
  • research projects on cyber-safety issues

ISPs will get a one-off subsidy in 2009-10 to install the filters, with funding in following years only for new providers. The Australian Federal Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions continue to get their funding to combat child sexual exploitation. Again, as they should.

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Wayne Swan’s “Yes Minister” moment

After he’d given the Budget Speech to parliament last night, Treasurer Wayne Swan was interviewed by the ABC’s PM program — where he delivered what I think has to be the best line of the night.

Swan was explaining that unlike his Liberal predecessor Peter Costello’s Future Fund, which was never spent on anything, Labor’s future funds would be spent on “contemporary” infrastructure needs. Journalist Mark Colvin asked how they could still be called future funds.

MARK COLVIN: I mean, if they’re not for the future, what are they for? Why aren’t they just government spending?

WAYNE SWAN: No, no. You’re confusing the name Future Fund with a fund for the future.

Yes, I can see how he’d be confused…

[Update 10.30am: Here’s the relevant piece of audio.]

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So where are the Federal Budget papers?

If you want the real information on Australia’s Federal Budget announced tonight, go to www.budget.gov.au. Start with the Budget Overview and then Budget Paper No. 1. If anything there triggers a need for further digging, Budget Paper No. 2 has the financial specifics. There’s bound to be further surprises buried down in the rest of the documents, but they’ll get you going.

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Covering the Federal Budget for Crikey

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Joy (I think). I’m part of Crikey‘s commentary team for Australia’s 2008 Federal Budget to be announced tonight at 7.30pm Sydney time. It’s the first budget for Chairman Rudd’s Labor government, and the first for treasurer Wayne Swan, so it’s bound to interesting.

My role — at least as I understand it, ‘cos I haven’t actually spoken with my editor yet — is to look at it from a geek perspective. That’ll include, I imagine, issues I’ve previously covered for Crikey: Internet censorship, the ABC’s move into Internet TV, social media, the national broadband network…

But what else should I look out for?

Continue reading “Covering the Federal Budget for Crikey”