Bobbsy

You guys must have awfully small kitchen bins if you can use a carrier bag as a liner! Ours is many times the size of a carrier bag! We have a big collection of re-usable bags--some are kept in a cupboard by the front door for big shopping trips but we also keep two or three in the car in case we stop somewhere on the spur of the moment. Our use of disposable bags is probably down of a couple per month. When I first moved to the UK (1976) you still had to pay for every carrier bag but they were much better quality and lasted a good long time. The move to disposable bags was a backwards step and I welcome any move to push people into using something re-usable.

Yup, it was a 1 Petabyte per second transfer rate. It'll be a very long time before we need speeds like that into our homes but, for example, server to server for a multinational company might need it a lot sooner. The bigger issue for Australia in the short/mid term will be this country's interconnections to the rest of the world. Right now both Telstra and Optus are cheaping out and not leasing sufficient capacity on their links to other countries--but that will inevitably change. I am to long out of the industry to know the details but the number of undersea fibres has been increasing rapidly for the last 20 years or so and the cost to lease capacity coming down equally fast. The same has happened with satellite channels. When I started in TV News in London in 1976, the average cost of a ten minute satellite was over $2000 and we did one or two a week. When I retired the cost of a ten minute feed by satellite or fibre was down to just over $100 and we did probably 20 per day. Similarly, our first 24 hour lease in about 1990 was $1.2 million per year. By the early 2000s that was down to around $200k per year. (And, of course, in the late 1980s thing were deregulated so we could operate our own uplinks.) The trick is to be ready for the future, not invest in the wrong technology and be taken by surprise.

Once you have a fibre into your home or office, the maximum speeds can be increased as needed. NTT (the Japanese telco) did an experiment last year of feeding a 1 petabyte (a million gigabytes) data rate over a single strand for 50 km. The difficult/expensive bit is getting the fibre in the ducts in the first place. Once the FTTP infrastructure is installed (and it will be eventually--the issue is whether the LNP first waste billions on technology that the UK and NZ have already thrown out as a mistake) we'll be future proof for at least our lifetimes.

I'd characterise it as "we can't afford not to". Our competitors in the developed world already have better broadband infrastructures than Australia but all already rolling out FTTP systems. That includes New Zealand, the UK and a roll out by Google of all people in the USA. Aus can't continue to be rich because we mine and sell coal. A) We'll run out, and B) The world...even China...is moving away from dirty energy sources. Australia needs to be preparing now for a high tech future--and the internet will be key to that. Beyond that, of course we can afford it. The Australian national debt is far from in crisis--it's around 30% of GDP. The American debt is about 75% of their GDP and the UK debt is over 90% of GDP. That's why Australia still has an AAA+ credit rating. Even with that though, it will be telecoms companies and users who will pay back the cost of the NBN over time. Your attitude is short sighted. Fifteen years ago I had 56kbps dial up and thought that was fast enough (compared to the 14.4kbps I had before). I got 512kbps ADSL in 2000 and my needs grew as did my reliance on the web. That migrated to 8Mbps in about 2003...and my use grew again. Stepping back to under 4Mbps here in Oz (at 3 times the cost) was a shock to the system. The world is changing. Australia needs a broadband system expandable for the future, not one mired in the past. The LNP scheme will prove to be a giant waste of money when it has to be replaced or augmented in five years.

Sorry, but just because YOU don't need high speed broadband don't assume everyone is the same--you're being very presumptuous. I've never watched a pirated show (indeed, rarely watch video at all) but the existing ADSL service I get is nowhere near adequate for work related things that my wife and I both do. My wife runs a small online jewellery company and I do sound recording and mixing, often for clients in the UK. Beyond that, there are 5 smartphones and 4 laptops in the house all doing normal internet stuff and sharing the highly limited bandwidth (because of our distance from the exchange our max speed is about 3900Mbps). We all endure frequent freezes and lag when everyone is trying to do something. I've already signed the petition noted above--but I also done personal emails to both my MP and to Tony Abbott himself. Politicians take more heed of personalised communication rather that an easy-to-sign petition. If you want proper FTTP, by all means sign...but write an email or letter as well.

Drinking on a plane always seems like a good idea until you get off and feel like death. Years of experience allowed me to compromise on wine with dinner and maybe one other drink, then lots of water. What a waste when the drinks are free.

I'd consider the "other doctor" route. Most are pretty sympathetic about prescribing a half dozen sleeping tablets for flying and jet lag...indeed, it was my doctor in Tring (a regular traveller himself) who first suggested this to me. He said it was how he managed his own jet lag!

Good idea but don't forget you'll need to buy the bottle AFTER you clear security--any liquid over a very small amount (I think 100ml but I haven't looked it up) will be confiscated. This means you have to pay inflated airport prices...but it's still worth having the water. Also, I know it's unfashionable but (having flown for work more times than I care to remember) I'm a firm believer in seeing your doctor and getting a few prescription sleeping tablets. Use them to make sure you sleep on the plane AND to make you sleep during the Aussie night when you arrive. I find this really helps the jet lag and lets you do things from day one.

We're in Southeast Queensland rather than Sydney but I actually see fewer spiders here than I did in the UK. It used to seem like every time I looked in the bathtub (in the UK) I'd see one or two house spiders. Here, seeing anything 8 legged is an event. Even the infamous huntsman tends to be a lot smaller than the famous pictures--usually no bigger and a large British house spider. We have had a couple of redbacks (over six years) but neither in a place that caused any problem. (One in a pocket on a second hand pool table we bought and the other in a distant corner of our clothes drying rack outside--I actually look forward to seeing the web each time I hang out laundry.) However, the most spectacular one was a large "golden orb" on the laundry "whirly-gig" at our first house. It was big but incredibly beautiful--and the thread in its web was like steel wire. As golden orbs aren't particularly venomous, I moved it gently to some bushes at the back of our yard--but never saw it again. Seriously, despite all the discussion of big and venomous spiders, it's really not the issue it's made out to be.

To be fair, British motorways are so crowded that, if everyone left the proper distance, as the car at the head of a queue arrived in London, the car at the back of the queue would be in John O'Groats.

...a very simplistic view. The problem with non polluting renewable sources just now is that, because of the existing infrastructure, coal and oil fired energy sources are cheaper than the clean alternatives so no business is going to be interested in changing. However, make things like coal more expensive and suddenly the alternatives become economic. As I said in an earlier post, I think the full carbon tax should go into subsidies for renewables but, even without that, such a tax would gradually make things like solar thermal competitive with dirty energy sources like coal.

I see Deputy PM Rinehart was partying hard on Saturday night to! GINA AT BARNABY JOYCE PARTY.

^^^^ This. Murdoch has a very specific agenda and uses his media to brainwash the gullible into believing him against their own best interests.

And do YOU realise that the technology the LNP want to use for their version of the NBN has already been tried in both the UK and New Zealand and declared a mistake. Both those countries are now rolling out Fibre to the Home solutions just like the proper NBN. The LNP plans are to do with ideology, not technology and will turn out to be a massive waste of money when their system has to be replaced in a few years. Oh, and it worth considering how far behind Australia is compared to the UK and NZ since they rolled out their FTTN systems some years back before rejecting it for something better. Telstra hasn't invested squat in new technology. That's the private sector for you.

On the entire discussion of the carbon tax about 99 people out of 100 are discussing what it costs and completely ignoring why we're worried about CO2 in the atmosphere. Sorry, but I do NOT want to hand my children a planet dying due to global warming and, at the risk of insulting a lot of people, anyone who is more worried about a few dollars in the wallet rather than the whole future of the world is incredibly selfish. Personally, I'd like the carbon tax even more if the revenues were ring fenced for investment into renewable energy--Australia is the perfect place for thermal solar generation yet we're lagging behind even places like Spain and Germany. It makes Gina Rinehart happy though (or should I say less angry--she won't be happy until Aussie miners are paid $2. a day like in Africa. A lot of the pro Abbott posts go on about not wanting to subsidise layabouts and so on. Well I turn that around--very few people abuse the system other than the better off who'd rather pocket more cash than look after the least well off in society. That's called selfishness. Funny how Abbott makes big play of being a Christian yet is happy to help the rich and ignore the poor. I'm an atheist yet I have more of a social conscience than that so-called Christian.

It'll be easy to convert to a computerised system for checking voters once we have the NBN. Oh, hang on....

Not true. Yeah, not all the Murdoch press has been as openly hostile as The Telegraph but Murdoch has been running a subtle anti-Labor, pro-coalition spin campaign in his media holdings for years. All the perceptions of Australia being in a financial crisis when, in reality, it has the healthiest economy in the developed world can be traced straight back to Murdoch. It's a great example of "say something often enough and it will be believed". Had Murdoch been spinning the other way, just think of how he could have played up the "Australian debt as a percentage of GDP is a third of that in the UK" or "Australian unemployment still the lowest in the Western world" stories. It was a relentless and subtle chipping away at the truth. No, the men in grey in the Labor Party didn't help any with their US-supported coup against Rudd. That was stupid politics--but if Rudd hadn't been brought back, the defeat would have been turned into a rout. Anyhow, I'm getting old but I really hope the world eventually wakes up to just how dangerous Rupert Murdoch is when he propagandises his right wing agenda in the USA, UK and Australia (and probably elsewhere).

Gee, I'm looking forward the NBN now...the LNP National Backwards-step Network!

You'll be sorrrrrry! Actually, I should look on the bright side. When Abbott drives Australia into recession with all his cuts, the dollar should plummet and my UK-paid pension should be worth a lot more each month. I just feel sorry for all the new unemployed and hope I get my heart op in before he decimates medicare.

Well, if you like homophobic bigots in the pocket of big business, I'm sure he's great!

Rupert Murdoch should be in jail for phone hacking in the UK. Instead he gets elected in Australia. I guess it's appropriate considering Australia's penal colony background...

If you read a paper or watch TV in Australia you have practically no choice. Fair and balanced? You decide:

...and Murdoch's media have been propagandising against Labor for all that time.

When Abbott destroys the Australian economy, cuts thousands of jobs and sends us into recession, please be aware that I'm NOT above saying "I told you so". Murdoch abused his virtual monopoly powers to brainwash a bunch of sheep too lazy to think for themselves that Labor had done a bad job. The very people stupid enough to believe the Murdoch press are the ones most likely to be hurt by having the LNP in power.

If done properly, the NBN can replace a huge amount of travel, including public transport, cars and airplanes.