tagged: "Big Australia", employment, Exports, farming, GFC, Global Financial Crisis, illegal immigration, infrastructure, Labor Party, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, NBN, Rural Australia, stop the boats, Telstra, USA

It may be expensive, but here is why we need an NBN:

Posted by Claire Connelly in Politics, Technology

1. “Big Australia” is going to happen whether we like it or not.

The concept of “Big Australia” was floated for a while by both parties (more so by Labor) but was quickly dropped when it didn’t poll well.

Even if we halt illegal immigration (which by the way, I don’t know why “stop the boats” is even on the agenda given that “boat people” make up about 1% of our “illegal immigration problem”), our population is growing, not slowing.

Certainly this growth has been helped along by political incentives like the baby bonus and education subsidies that came as the result of the Intergenerational Report and if Tony has his way this trend is unlikely to cease or slow once paid parental leave is implemented.

The government has a responsibility to plan for this inevitability, regardless of whether it is going to sell well. It is lunacy and down right neglectful not to build the necessary infrastructure crucial for supporting future generations.

2. We need to create real incentives to keep people out of capital cities by creating mini metropolises in rural areas that don’t just support labour but lifestyles.

Rather than the fly-in-fly-out style of labour intensive mining towns, why not create a town you can move your family out to?

Towns that are supported by shopping centres, quality educational institutions, hospitals, and daycare centres – so you have the bonus of creating jobs and supporting local economies.

Rural towns are crying out for people and until recently, the government has done sweet-eff-all about it.

You can sell almost anything if you do it the right way but Labor has chosen to prioritise the opinion of inner-city hipsters over the needs of rural Australians.

Why can’t we create incentives to attract employment to rural areas?

If we can incentivise people to join the Army by paying for their tertiary education, can’t we do the same for teachers? Doctors?

Or at least create economic incentives like tax breaks for people who choose to move to rural communities for work?

Mini-metropolises are the only way of luring people away from capital cities.

3. Australia has roughly the same land mass as America and yet less than half of our land is occupied.

And for all those people arguing  “but that land is uninhabitable, it’s all arid desert” – I have two words for you:

Las Vegas.

I have another two words for you:

Hoover Dam.

That America has such a vastly diverse geographical culture, and so many towns all over the continent is because behind every small town, was a politician, and a population that understood the need to create local infrastructure to support long term population growth.

Wouldn’t it be great, for Australians to be as excited about traveling across their own continent as they are about traveling across the US and experiencing all the rich diverse cultures of local communities?

Creating new in-land cities could do as much for our tourism industry as it could for employment.

Though there are some stark differences between America and Australia – until the last few decades the US was a hub of manufacturing, but as businesses moved offshore, employment in local communities dwindled, and we have yet to see any real solutions for post GFC recovery.

In Australia we at least have the benefit of being a major exporter of coal, wool, zinc, tin ores, beef, barely and raw sugar.

Whilst I never thought  we’d be declaring a war against Flipino bananas, Katter is right – we certainly need to be doing more to support local farming.

4. We need a nation wide NBN to make it viable to do business from the country and to support the myriad of industries it would benefit.

I agree with Malcolm Turnbulll – that the government shouldn’t necessarily be at the centre of the economy, and he’s right, 48 billion dollars is an awful lot of money we shouldn’t have to pay – we should wait for market forces to tell us when it is the right time – but unfortunately Australia has been waiting for years, with no result.

WHY? Because the Liberal party created an environment conducive to letting one company run a monopoly on phone lines in this country – and if that isn’t a clear as day example of putting government at the centre of the economy then I don’t know what is.

Telstra should not be allowed within ten yards of the NBN!

The best possible outcome for broadband in this country is fulfilling the Labor promise of finally dismantling Telstra, and allowing other phone companies to enter the market by buying up different parts of the NBN, creating real and lasting competition.

This outcome is good for creating jobs, as well as keeping prices low for consumers.