The big question ?

Older Australians will remember the period immediately after the end of the second world war - and the fiasco that was this country's telephone system.    Providing voice communication was a government monopoly vested in the hands of the Postmaster Generals Department ( PMG ) - and in older suburbs you will still see some cableway covers inscribed with the " PMG " logo.

Returning servicemen and the influx of migrants was way beyond the ability of a government department to cope - and getting a new phone connection was often measured in " years " !  In some areas we even revisited the old " party line " system - and nothing changed until telephones moved from government control - into the hands and initiatives of the private sector.

Now would be a good time to consider the future of the National Broadband Network ( NBN) ?

Connection to homes and businesses is about to pickup - but do we want this to be another government monopoly ?    It is being created with billions of public money, but it is a fact of life that governments are not good at running commercial operations - particularly when that operation has monopoly status.

Access costs could be the stumbling block.   When it is complete it is likely that existing communication companies will vie for a license to sell cable time to consumers and hopefully a lot of such companies will provide price competition to keep prices low - again provided that if the government continues to own NBN it does not use the monopoly to gouge unrealistic returns.

There are suggestions that NBN could be sold off by way of a share float, but this simply reintroduces that monopoly situation.    The smart people who grab a shareholding in such a NBN venture could be looking for an unrealistic return - and this would be at the expense of industrial clients - and the mums and dads who now consider a home computer as one of life's essentials.

NBN is going to provide a national service.   Perhaps the best solution would be to leave it in public ownership - but controlled by a board of nominees from each of the states and territories.

Such a board would present a mix of political thinking, and as no individual political party usually has control in all states and territories it would be subject to a high degree of independent thinking.   Broadband is new technology - and we need to harness it's operations to people " who think outside the nine dots " !