ZDNet Australia Interviews Richard Alston

ynotds writes "ZDNet Australia has an interview with notorious Australian IT Minister Senator Richard Alston which could even be read as suggesting that he, like some others in the Australian government, has learned a little about his portfolio during his 7 years at the helm. He responds openly about his censorhip regime, lack of action against spam and his antipathy towards Electronic Frontiers Australia but refuses to get into details on cyberterrorism response and security expenditure."

personally...

[acehole]

I dont like him, he's doing nothing but damage to the net services in australia. The government is pushing to privitize the largest telecommunications company 'telstra', so what you might ask?

Well for regional centres the access to broadband is less than adequate and if it is pushed to be a private enterprise company then the new owners might not bother with the regional centres because of the cost involved.

Information on Senator Alston

[Sex_On_The_Beach]

For those who are not familiar with the infamous Senator, his profile can be seen here [dcita.gov.au].

Eat me like a sausage!

The full story

[Anonymous Coward]

For those overseas readers who dont know, senator alston is the minister for technology in Australia, he has copped alot of flack for issues regarding Telstra, and the infamous 3g cap imposed by the company on the users.

Senator alston is famous for quotes such as "Broadband is only used for pornography" and "3 gigabits (note bits) is enough for everyone".

He was the head of a 4 million dollar investigation of how spam affects australian businesses. A 98 page report was the output of 4 million dollars of Tax payers money.

I personally believe that he is out of touch with technology, and is being hand fed statistics and information by australias technology corporations, in their favour.

Without the necessary infastructure, Australia as a country can not expect to keep their IT professionals in Australia.

Re:personally...

[LordLucless]

The main problem with privatizing Telstra is that it is not economically feasible to maintain its infrastructure to the more remote areas of Australia. What would be really good is if the infrastructure became run by a 100% government agency, while the services became 100% privatized, and paid a subscription to the government for access to the infrastructure. Then you could have equal access to the infrastructure for competitors, and no profit-based conflicts over maintaining the infrastructure.

Re:Question

[Idarubicin]

Out of curiosity, where did you aussies pick up those people to run your Government?

Disclaimer: IANAA (I am not an Australian).

The ministers that make up the Australian Cabinet are selected from the elected Members of Parliament in the ruling party. I imagine that they are chosen by the Prime Minister in consultation with his party. As in many other UK-style parliamentary democracies (ie England, Canada, etc.) there is little public input into the selection of ministers--though unpopular choices will often be shuffled off into other posts fairly quickly.

Deputy ministers hold unelected staff position, and they are usually the ones that actually have a good understanding of the portfolio and deal with it on a day-to-day basis. Some ministers are more clued-in than others.

There is no equivalent to the Senate confirmation process that exists in the United States, which is something of a mixed blessing. There isn't any public debate about choice of ministers. On the bright side, you have to option of not reelecting particularly annoying Ministers.

The system has its flaws--but it does mean that anyone who holds a cabinet post has had to win an election. In the States, I note that the current Attorney General was nominated shortly after losing his election bid to a dead man. (In principle, IIRC Ministers do not have to be sitting Members of Parliament, but this is almost unheard-of. A Minister without a seat would not be able to speak during government debates--utterly a sitting duck. The Opposition would eat him alive.)