About three weeks ago, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield earned a bit of scorn in these columns after one of his media advisers sent iTWire a press release that could only be described as silly.
On Monday morning I discovered that Fifield is not a monopolist in this field; his Labor counterpart Michelle Rowland is right up there when it comes to vacuous communication. Her reaction to the NBN Co corporate plan for 2017 is so empty that it is a wonder that any news outlet gave it even two centimetres of space.
Labor doesn't send its press releases to iTWire. One never knows why. But this press release is such a peach that I looked it up on Rowland's website to have a bit of a chuckle.
Apparently, Rowland has a very high opinion of Fifield, because she starts out by saying, "the release of the NBN corporate plan shows that not even Mitch Fifield can fix Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate copper NBN." (emphasis mine)
{loadposition sam08}Looks like Fifield, in Rowland's book, is the last port of call to fix up a mess – rather than a jovial, average pollie which is how most people perceive him.
The rest of the release goes over well-worn material, all of which is old hat. Turnbull, stuff-up, copper, blah, blah, blah, promise, $29.5 billion, $54 billion, on and on and on.
Now those who want to know Labor's NBN policy were told all about it before the 2 July election. The people didn't vote for it, else Labor would have been in office. It's time to accept that and move on.
By the time the next election rolls around in 2019, the NBN build will be too advanced to make major changes. And after 2020, there will be no money for a rebuild. It will not happen in my lifetime, of that I am sure.
The only new thing in that corporate plan was the statement that shows the Coalition is made in the image of the American Republican Party: it is preparing the way for a two-tier NBN. More bandwidth to the rich who can afford it, the poor can take a hike. iTWire highlighted that point. Rowland, like all the mainstream media, missed it.
Go back and read it, Michelle. Yes, the plan runs to 74 pages and it's full of bizspeak but there is no point in spouting before knowing what to spout about.
Anyone who does not have bricks in their head wants a full fibre NBN. But now that that is not a possibility, we have all moved on and resigned ourselves to seeing that buffering symbol all the way to our graves.
Unlike the Fifield press release, there is no indication who wrote this note. Memo to Rowland: you might like to dock the pay of that man or woman. Anyone who does not poke fun at this release is... well, words fail me.