Good article, i have mulled it over for a couple of days as the NBN has caused much debate. I have always considered it to be a winner but i am a rural resident and anything in the way of modern infrastructure is a winner in the bush as we rarely see any of it unless it is for the advantage of city folk. Member for New England said during the week that 43 billion over 9 years was chicken feed. That is only 5 billion a year for 9 years followed by all commercial sales returns that are created during and after. Considering the disaster of the Telstra sale and the collapse of the share value of the AWB, holding on to an asset like this is preferred. For the technology doubters, optic fibre itself will not date for a very long time. The cable has the ability to carry information at light speed. It is the technology we plug into it that will date quickly. in the end this only helps to expand the retail and systems industries, more business more jobs.
Certainly the NBN itself will not give rise to the sudden decentralisation of commerce to more rural and regional centres. This will take much more infrastructure such as the completion of the national 1 highway and up grading the Newell and New England highways. Then there is rail infrastructure that has been left to deteriorate and many branch lines closed as maintenance costs have exploded. One of the articles main points was air travel to the regions, this will come with demand. At this stage there are airports all over the country that are underused. Capacity is there it needs demand.
Overall without projects like the NBN, growth and transfer of commerce from urban areas to the rural zones will never happen. Once this project is complete it is important that the government show what its plan is to keep the infrastructure improvements coming so as to offer incentive to business to relocate or to help current rural industries be competitive in the market place.

Having witnessed the population drift from the country to the capitals and coast I cannot see how it will have a worthwhile effect. It isn't as though we are talking about anything new, business and government have had the capacity to decentralise for some time, yet the direction of change has been the other way. The enforced (what would you call it when jobs were taken away) drift away from the country and the ossification of the larger inland and coastal cities has continued.

Honestly, what prevents government from locating the central offices of the Department of Veterans' Affairs or the Department of Health and Ageing in (say) Toowoomba? Oh whoops, Toowoomba doesn't have any water, what about Bundaberg, that is on the coast but its water restrictions were lifted due to recent rains, hope they keep up.

When government takes action to decentralise Canberra I will sit up and take some notice. Until then what about reeling back all of that over-enthusiastic immigration as demanded by the electorate?

The reason for the non-growth of Canberra is quite obvious. Would you want to live that close to so many politicians?

Couple of quick points:

1) The City of Ballarat has had some success at attracting corporations/large public service undertakings to its "Technology Park" such as IBM and VicRoads (both focused on teleconferencing). In this case it was the result of clever planning and integration with the local University's IT department (no doubt some tax concessions thrown in).

2) Yes, you need more than the NBN to encourage decentralisation. The Whitlam govt had built up a credible plan here in the 70s but were only just getting going with it when turfed out. It clearly requires considering transport, social opportunities, economics (including govt intervention). Advanced countries like Germany have a much more decentralised pattern than Oz, so it _can_ be done.

3) As a young person for whom dealing with climate change is a major priority, it's concerning all the posters here saying better highways and air links to regions are what's needed. How about a comprehensive nation-wide plan for rail connections to our regions? Even the tentative improvements in Victoria in this respect since 2000 are starting to pay off.

The government and either side is no different, hasn't encouraged miners to build mining towns or add to the development of country towns within reach. That is how some towns got going years ago, although when the holes are left and the miners have departed the shrinking of the town can be very painful, eg Mount Morgan.

Maybe if government wants to prove how NBN can save a city it could try an easy little existing target like Mt Morgan. If it is seen to be working adjust immigration numbers to suit. If not, close the immigration valve a touch because after all, it is just resulting in more overcrowding in cities. Isn't that what the electorate wants, the long-promised solutiohn before, not after, the record immigration numbers?

Government could always move the central office of Centrelink to the target NBN success story of Mt Morgan to help numbers. Or are the bureaucrats clever enough to convince the Parliament that a central office is really a 'national' office and therein lies a convenient rationalisation for all of that centralism in Canberra.

Maybe the senior bureacrats who have come up with the idea that the NBN would result in blooming cities out in the mulga could volunteer their departments as the first to be relocated. Accountability like that would be a first and something for Australia to boast of.

Pat S stop worrying about global warming, it, like the Y2K bug, is a non event.

Unfortunately you don't understand just how busy the management of even quite small companies can be.

I used to run a 5 vessel tourist day trip operation in the Whitsunday Islands.

Our larger, [325 passenger] newer boats were built in Cairns, & I had to go there regularly when the boats were being built, modified, or dry docked for maintenance.

Unfortunately the only flights available left the Whitsundays at 2.00PM, & arrived back at 1.00PM. This meant that to spend a day in Cairns, I had to effectively spend 3 days doing it. I could not afford that much time.

To avoid this waste of time I would leave home at 4.00AM & drive to Townsville, catch an 8.00AM flight to Cairns. After a days work I would catch a flight to Townsville at 6.00PM ex Cairns, & drive back to the Whitsundays, arriving some time after 10.30PM.

I did not work 18/19 hour days because I liked the idea, or enjoyed the drive, I did it because I could not afford to do otherwise.

People running large operations have even less time to sit in trains.

Oh, one other thing, most public transport uses more fuel per passenger mile than private cars. Public transport is only viable in the minds of the Green converted.