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Australian IT Minister Alston Replaced
srouvray writes "The Australian is reporting: In a re-shuffle of the Australian Federal Cabinet, current Communications Minister Richard Alston will be replaced (Alston is going to retire) with Attorney General Darryl Williams. Alston is 'credited' for introducing tough anti-spam laws into parliament... Although it will be interesting to see if Williams will be branded a 'Luddite' as well!"
Let's not forget that this is the minister who said that broadband was only for games and porn.
I for one welcome his replacement.
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
At last, the cretin has gone. And despite the media claiming he left of his own accord, everyone in politics knows that he was pushed, due to his own ineptitude.
Of course, Williams is just as much of a wanker, and probably won't fix anything.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
* Stop the Telstra Bulldozer in it's tracks -- support broadband. Canada proves it's possible in a big country
* Sensible censorship
* Sensible copyright
* Serious commitment to anti-spam
* Keep investing and committing to open source
Alston's policies have left Australia as an international IT joke. So much local telent, and so many opportunities in the Asian and global markets have gone to waste. More importantly, every Australian business and consumer has suffered from the 1950s attitudes of the present Aussie govt. Step into the 80s guys, the economy is not all agriculture and textiles!
Alston was a communications disaster, presiding over failed Telstra rollouts/privatizations, 3G rollouts, HDTV rollouts; if it rolled, he screwed it up.
OTOH, Williams has possibly been the worst Attorney-General in living memory, and he's being replaced by the most embarrassing Immigration Minister of all time so he can replace Alston! This I gotta see.
Yup, it's the good ol' Disaster Shuffle. Take yer partners for a foot-stomping good time :)
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
I personally would greatly enjoy 100 megabits to my door, which could be done quite easily for most towns of about 5,000 or more and would obsolete wired telephones on the day, but while I've seen far worse abuses of it, I think spending tax money is not the way to do this.
I say "most" because towns like Wyndham are kind of difficult to get the bandwidth to, and quite a few West Aussie towns are difficult to wire for anything because the ground is too hard (Albany) or too salty (Lancelin).
I also fear what would happen with 100Mb door-to-door when the next CodeRed/Nimda/MSBlast goes off. Someone could suck out your entire hard drive in a few minutes. Perhaps in 5 years when hardly anyone's using MS-Windows any more?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Er... oh, you meant the Kiwis...? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Refusing to accept UN reports on racism in Australia
Yes, the UN over sensationalised the reports. Dont believe me, live here for 10 years, read it, then make your decision
I've lived here for thirty years, and I've witnessed a once thriving multicultural society returning to the days of the White Australia Policy. It's fucking scary.
I would suggest that this reshuffle is more to deflect criticism of the heavy-handed way in which Alston has attempted to directly influence editorial and policy and journalism in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation over, for example, the Iraq War II.