fatvegan

I think the idea of investing the Future Fund in broadband is a good one. It's a profitable investment in Australia, not an investment just to increase our current consumption. The economy will be grateful for it. If, as John Howard says, the private sector should be doing it, then it's obviously a sound investment. So the issue isn't that Labor wants to spend money from the Future Fund. Even Howard is acknowledging that the investment is a good one. Predictably, it looks like the natural monopoly of telecommunications has beaten the private sector. There's no good reason why Australia should have worse broadband than Slovakia and Hungary.

If it's a good investment it probably doesn't really matter where the money comes from. Probably the Future Fund is a good way of financing future liabilities, but increasing economic output (by building better infrastructure) is another method. So the Liberals are effectively saying that Australia doesn't need broadband badly enough for the government to build it when the private sector won't. That's debatable, but I suspect that the Australian people and businesses who benefit from it (which is all of them) are going to side with Labor. I think we could be waiting a long time for Telstra to do it. Regardless, I think we'll get a better outcome if the government gets involved. There is no effective way of getting the private sector to manage this sort of resource. For the government, what you don't build yourself you have to regulate, and that can be worse.

In the Herald Peter Hartcher was saying that this is Rudd's first mistake. He says that it's a political mistake more than a policy mistake and perhaps he's right. But I'd prefer a flawed politician with good policies than a flawless politician with bad policies. My impression of Rudd so far is that he says what he believes. And he's smart and thoughtful enough that what he believes is usually pretty good. I just hope he doesn't back down on it because he's worried they'll look bad.