NBN: Turnbull and lawyer jokes

In two interviews with Alan Jones, 04-Apr-2013 and 15-jul-2013, Turnbull repeats a quaint joke on asking directions to Dublin "if I were you I wouldn’t be starting from here", emphasising the Coalition wouldn't voluntarily start with the current NBN plan.

The audacity of this statement I find truly astounding.


Not only did a Liberal Government create this whole mess, but Turnbull was personally involved in it, as a Minister in the Howard Government that sold Telstra without being structurally separated. Telstra, in the words of Liberal MP, Paul Fletcher, "is a monster".

The Liberals sold Telstra in 2006, so why are they now working so hard to protect and upgrade its copper assets? That's not good business.

In every other country, the incumbent Telco is rolling out their Broadband Network. Because those Telcos already own all the infrastructure (holes in the ground, buildings, ...) and the network, the economics of their projects are considerably different.

NBN Co started as a blank-sheet and has had to buy access to Telstra assets. That makes us as taxpayers, voters and Telco customers have to pay twice for the same assets: Once when we gave it away to Telstra after funding them over decades, then again with the NBN.

This situation was entirely the creation of the Coalition and Turnbull personally.

Australia's situation is different because the Coalition and Turnbull created it that way.
These are the people that forced us to "start from here".

The history of the Australian Telco market since the 1982 Davidson Enquiry recommending deregulation is one of market failure.

Whenever there was a chance of Telco co-operation or acting in the benefit of Customers, the Telcos have together acted in opposition.

The $6 billion 1995-1997 Cable TV rollout was an unmitigated financial disaster for everyone. All but one Pay-TV content provider failed and  it took Foxtel 10 years to declare a profit. Australia, unlike every other advanced country, has a very poor Pay TV market penetration, currently only around 30%.

For Turnbull to say "we wouldn't have started from here" is gob-smacking to me, when he made us "start from here" by selling Telstra!

There's a lawyer joke that describes what's going on and that we won't ever hear Turnbull trot out:

How do you know it's really cold? A lawyer has his hands in his own pockets.