*Which well sums up the methodology of right-wingers when it comes to "innovation".*

No it does not. It shows that spending needs to be accountable and when it comes to mega billions, even more so. It remains to be seen as to how many users are prepared to pay the NBN extra, to download a movie in 5 seconds instead of 5 minutes. If they really need that, then then user should pay, not the taxpayer.

*"Private colleges earn millions from phantom students as TAFE teachers axed because of government funding cuts"*

Exactly! Govt cum the public service are so hopeless at what they do, that it is clearly beyond them to even police the service providers, let alone run an efficient enterprise. So scoundrels move in. Duh.
Do you think that if there were no police force, crime would not increase? So why is it beyond Govt to clamp down on fraud?

*unload a spiel of the most pure right-wing vacuous bilge.*

Ahh, but I am not a party person, but an issues person. So I think that Keating and Hawke both were ok and made positive changes which the extreme left spewed over. You must be extreme left! I am kind of in the middle, depends on the issue. Keating warned us 25 years ago that we would land up like a banana republic unless we changed our ways. Some still haven't gotten the message.

Yabby, I agree that spending needs to be accountable. But did you overlook my 10:32 AM post? FTTN is an insane waste of money. Regardless of user benefits, FTTP is much better value for the taxpayers. And if a lack of qualified people is what's limiting rollout speed, they should train and employ more people, not just give up and resort to inferior technology. 'Tis not as if there's a shortage of potential workers.

"Govt cum the public service are so hopeless at what they do, that it is clearly beyond them to even police the service providers, let alone run an efficient enterprise. So scoundrels move in. Duh.
Do you think that if there were no police force, crime would not increase? So why is it beyond Govt to clamp down on fraud?"
Clamping down on fraud requires two things: firstly it requires the activity to be illegal – far too often the government contracts are badly written, so the government doesn't get the desired results but still has to pay. Secondly it requires resources to enforce the law.

But when the public sector budget is continually cut, AS YOU ADVOCATE, the resources to enforce the law are in short supply. As indeed are the people who scrutinise the contracts. Consider the school halls scheme: in WA, where the state government scrutinised everything and demanded to know the reason if costs were higher than expected, it was very good value for money. But in NSW and Victoria, where the state government no longer had that capability and instead put the private sector in charge of managing it, it was very poor value for money.

True efficiency requires a capable public sector. The Right's dream of a minimal public sector may be superficially attractive, but it's a false economy – it gives the illusion of efficiency while pushing far higher costs onto future generations (and sometimes onto the present generation as well).

You've failed to notice that it's not the countries with big government that are banana republics, it's the countries with the smallest government.

*and the cost of delivering FTTP has also fallen, there is no technical excuse to waste money on FTTN

Yes Aiden, the cost has fallen and given the rapid change in IT, should fall alot further. Already the talk is about FTTdp. Give it 5 years and we will likely be using even cheaper and better technology, so it is foolish spending an extra 30 billion now.

*He should resign.*

How arrogant of you. Read the man's CV. He clearly knows how to crunch the numbers and is in a position to do so, with information at his fingertips which you and I don't have.

Spending 3 years training a whole lot of extra people, only to sack them all again after a mad rush to meet deadlines, would be even more foolish. This all for a product for which we do not even know, if demand exists to any large scale or if people are prepared to pay the extra cost involved. Any business doing something so foolish, would soon be out of business.

*The Right's dream of a minimal public sector may be superficially attractive, but it's a false economy*

Well no. It is people like me who see the huge waste going on in Govt enterprises and having run businesses without that kind of waste, see what needs changing. For a start, get rid of the dead wood and make people accountable for their jobs and waste, or have the right to fire them.

As a matter of interest, banana republics have a small public service, because they have no money. They usually have no money, because business refuses to invest there to generate wealth. Keating at least understood that, even if much of the left does not.

Come on Yabby, I doubt Turnbull ever crunched a number himself, & probably if his current performance is any guide, could not interoperate the result with out help when someone did.

Even if he can, it is highly unlikely he ever has had any interest in crunching numbers for the good of the general public. He has never shown any likelihood of it.

Around here the NBN is just a dirty word. Dozens, or perhaps hundreds can not get any access to the net at all, as the population has outstripped the exchange capacity. They have been told they may get access within 5 years or so.

Apparently no new work will occur before the NBN arrives. We have the useless grinning clones, Rudd & Turnbull for this state of affairs.

Don't you find it interesting that both of them have a habit of sprouting some new stupidity after long flights. Both have grasshopper minds. Land on a subject, take one bite, & fly on, with some half baked understanding, & even less intelligent thinking.

Yes they have us on a road to nowhere. With this pair, we are more likely to find ourselves on Alice's yellow brick road, than any other.

Yabby,

"Yes Aiden, the cost has fallen and given the rapid change in IT, should fall alot further. Already the talk is about FTTdp. Give it 5 years and we will likely be using even cheaper and better technology, so it is foolish spending an extra 30 billion now."
On the contrary, it's foolish waiting. Most of the technological advancements in optic fibres have already been made, and those that haven't are unlikely to significantly affect its cost. The cost only fell recently because of the introduction of skinny fibre (which is more flexible than normal fibre). Now that the additional flexibility is there, there are unlikely to be any major technological breakthroughs that could reduce costs. There will probably be minor improvements, but these will be counteracted by rising wage costs.

Also, even without skinny fibre, doing it right the first time is the most cost effective option. It's well worth spending an extra 30 billion now to avoid spending an extra 40 billion in the future.

FTTDP is better than conventional FTTN, but retaining a short section of copper is inefficient; it requires modems (wasting electricity) and will still be a significant source of unreliability.

"How arrogant of you. Read the man's CV. He clearly knows how to crunch the numbers and is in a position to do so, with information at his fingertips which you and I don't have."
Did you actually look at the report which concluded that FTTN was good value for money? I did. I noticed that, at a time when the official interest rate was about 3%, they had to use a rate of 7% to build enough short term bias into the calculations to reach their politically imposed conclusion. Now the cost of FTTP has fallen relative to that of FTTN, and the official interest rate has fallen to 2%, the case for FTTP is much stronger. So if he fails to see that, I make no apologies for accusing him of incompetence, regardless of what's on his CV.

(TBC)

(continued)
"Spending 3 years training a whole lot of extra people, only to sack them all again after a mad rush to meet deadlines, would be even more foolish"
Training those extra people needn't take that long, and they'd gain transferrable skills which are likely to make them more desirable to private sector employers. Meanwhile there's significant unemployment, and spending more on NBN construction to get it finished sooner will spur private sector growth.

"This all for a product for which we do not even know, if demand exists to any large scale or if people are prepared to pay the extra cost involved."
Even if demand for high speed internet were insufficient, ongoing costs mean that FTTP works out as the cheaper option.

"Well no. It is people like me who see the huge waste going on in Govt enterprises and having run businesses without that kind of waste, see what needs changing. For a start, get rid of the dead wood and make people accountable for their jobs and waste, or have the right to fire them."
But you mistake productive people for dead wood. You replace one kind of inefficiency for a much worse one.
Spending less on employees is a false economy when it means you have to spend more on consultants to get the work done.
Employing fewer of the people who ensure you get you good value for money is the worst false economy of all.

"As a matter of interest, banana republics have a small public service, because they have no money. They usually have no money, because business refuses to invest there to generate wealth. Keating at least understood that, even if much of the left does not."
Banana republics fail to attract business investment because they've failed to invest in educating their population.

Countries that have their own floating currency don't have to wait for outside investment; they can create their own money, spend it, and reclaim it via taxation. Keating had the foresight to float our dollar, but he and his successors have failed to fully take advantage of that.