Hang on Tristan, "Here, time is of the essence. Australia could well become a world leader in new communications, information, and entertainment industries." This is borrowed (or stolen) from the AGW industry where the claim is Australia is going to become a world leader in renewable technologies.

Jeez we'll be busy leading the world, and I'll bet everyone out there in the world is just waiting for Australia to show them the way, like we are with renewable energy .. what, we're not, oh but I thought, never mind./sarc

It sounds like it will take as long to do as the Snowy River project, and by then the world will have passed us by.

Governments should get out of the way, stop mandating what should be done, and simply make it easier for companies to do things, like reduce taxes, free up the industrial relations system, allow companies to use $ they might pay in tax for R&D (there is an R&D scheme but you need around $1M a year for the accounting to actually use the government's convoluted system)

We can't expect to pay as little as Europe or the US do for boradband, they have larger markets, if we want it we have to pay more, fine, I'm happy to pay more - my worry is with this government they never do anything beyond talking and while they are, nothing happens. Again, get out of the way!

How did Rudd get to believe overnight that he could turn into a Major Service Supply Industry ? Govt. has never been any good at any service delivery , Trains passenger and Goods , the old PMG , Water , Education , Roads & Electricity .
Eight years ETA , a lot will happen in that time ! It will most likely be obsolete in 5 yrs look at MOB tech .

Rudd and his mad mate should hop back into their square before they get to look like right royal galoots .

Jefferson - just to be clear - I am a socialist, a liberal and an internationalist. Ia abhor violent militarism; and I believe class struggle is one of the most important 'engines' which has driven progressive change

Tony Blair is a Fabian, so's this guy. Violent "interventions", "regime changes", and now, "religious wars" are part of the deal with such pompous imperialists (try a search on 'tony blair" and 'chicago council', for example). Just don't call it "militarism" - that would mean "fascist"!

The advertised "infrastructure" scheme is simply an effort to prevent the bandwidth choke promised by the totalitarian Canberra-centred web-filtering push. The entire process is vastly bigger than anything the Stasi could even dream about.

Fascists all, in effect. No wonder the out-of-touch article evoked typically out-of-touch, but compatible, neolib fantasies about "no tax", "leave the state out", etc. They're having a non-debate, because both sides here essentially agree to the same monetarist fiction under its financiers' "free trade" regime.

News break clowns: USD 14.5 Trillion of derivatives debt is being fed continuously via the combined lunacy of the state's monetarists and their bosses and school chums in the finance sector (and, of course, in the bogus, lying "opposition" lib/nats). The bail-out pork is spreading endlessly towards a hyperinflationary Weimar repeat on a global scale. In other words, a lead-up to fascism.

Now, just who do these Fabians really work for?

Mil-observer - if you want to know what I believe re: war - read some of the material I wrote for Arena Magazine on the Iraq conflict. I hope what you say is some kind of 'joke' - but I don't find those kind of accusations very funny. BTW - militarism might be a necessary precondition of fascism - but it is not a sufficient condition. Maybe I should just ignore this - I don't know.

And of course - neo-liberal authoritarianism and militarism may not in themselves by fascist - but they are no less undesirable.