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ZDNet Australia Interviews Richard Alston
ynotds writes "ZDNet Australia has an interview with notorious Australian IT Minister Senator Richard Alston which could even be read as suggesting that he, like some others in the Australian government, has learned a little about his portfolio during his 7 years at the helm. He responds openly about his censorhip regime, lack of action against spam and his antipathy towards Electronic Frontiers Australia but refuses to get into details on cyberterrorism response and security expenditure."
You know what I just heard? ZDNet Australia has an interview with notorious Australian IT Minister Senator Richard Alston which could even be read as suggesting that he, like some others in the Australian government, has learned a little about his portfolio during his 7 years at the helm. He responds openly about his censorhip regime, lack of action against spam and his antipathy towards Electronic Frontiers Australia but refuses to get into details on cyberterrorism response and security expenditure.
Go read it!
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Do you regret making the comments that broadband in Korea is being driven primarily by demand for porn and games?
Has nobody told this guy that porn and games drive demand for the Internet in the whole world?
The ENIAC Demo Competition
...then they complain about the amount of overseas traffic. Can you add one to one?
bash$
I dont like him, he's doing nothing but damage to the net services in australia. The government is pushing to privitize the largest telecommunications company 'telstra', so what you might ask?
Well for regional centres the access to broadband is less than adequate and if it is pushed to be a private enterprise company then the new owners might not bother with the regional centres because of the cost involved.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Out of curiosity, where did you aussies pick up those people to run your Government? Law firms? Car insurance companies?
:)
... ye gods
My first temptation was to mention George Dubya Bush, but I'm not sure if you're american
But seriously (!), as an aussie who has spent a fair amount of time overseas, this is quite an interesting point. The attitude of the average australian to politics is hard to define - complete apathy is the closest thing I can think of but that's not quite right either. All I can say is that it's quite different from anywhere else in the world.
(Yes, I do realise I'm generalising and oversimplifying here)
All of the politicians and most of what they stand for are completely hated (that's too strong a word, but it will do). Australians have accepted that they care for nothing more than the next election and protecting their massive superannuation payouts. Whenever a politician speaks, they are just dribbling the same bullshit (read the interview carefully - is any of the questions actually answered?) and lies, and nothing worthwhile is actually going to happen.
Australians seem to realise that no matter who is elected, they will do the same crap job as whoever was in power before. If the same major party is elected they'll do the same crap job, if the other major party is elected they'll spend 3 years undoing what the previous government did and accomplish nothing anyway. There seems to be a genuine feeling that if every poiltician disappeared tomorrow Australia would actually be better off as a country.
The upshot of this attitude to politics is that nobody with the slightest grain of intelligence wants to be a politician, so we get people like Richard Alston. You just have to look at our prime ministers over the years
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
Exactly, who ever heard of something really useful that benefits the community, but expensive, being available for free. Like free roads. Or free education. Or free healthcare.
Free electricity? Nope.
Free telephones? Nope.
Free air conditioning? Nope.
Nothing is free; it all has to be paid for somewhere. All the things you mentioned are paid for, by the taxpayer. The only people clamouring for anything "free" are the ones who have made the deliberate decision that taxpayer-funding will result in them getting more from the system than they have contributed, i.e. they want their personal luxuries to be subsidized by other people's work.
For those overseas readers who dont know, senator alston is the minister for technology in Australia, he has copped alot of flack for issues regarding Telstra, and the infamous 3g cap imposed by the company on the users.
Senator alston is famous for quotes such as "Broadband is only used for pornography" and "3 gigabits (note bits) is enough for everyone".
He was the head of a 4 million dollar investigation of how spam affects australian businesses. A 98 page report was the output of 4 million dollars of Tax payers money.
I personally believe that he is out of touch with technology, and is being hand fed statistics and information by australias technology corporations, in their favour.
Without the necessary infastructure, Australia as a country can not expect to keep their IT professionals in Australia.