Book Notes: "Here's Luck" by Lennie Lower

Here's Luck by Lennie Lower

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Lenny Lower is an Australian version of a cross between Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Kerouac, but I found myself expecting a "boom-tish" at the end of the many of the dead-pan jokes. Written in the first person, this Depression-era novel is certainly literature, and despite creating an expectancy of slap-stick that never comes, I feel that if Fitzgerald and Kerouac collaborated on an episode of Dad and Dave, Here's Luck would be the result! Not sure why Lower's work is not used more often in Australian schools, and I was glad to find this gem after reading Max Cullens' autobiography, Tell 'Em Nothing, Take 'Em Nowhere".



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What happens when the Australian government does not get overly involved in industry? Holden.

© Depositphotos.com/@Artzzz

Whenever I report on the research I conducted into Australian telecommunications during the period 2005-2013, I often refer to the over-bearing extent of government control and how this has stifled Australian industry. This brings numerous calls from anonymous commentators about how the market had failed and therefore government intervention was necessary.

In telecommunications, the simple fact is that government has never given the market a chance to function. Now I don't mean that a free market will ensure towns like Longreach in Queensland's central west  get the NBN (now nbn) tomorrow. What I mean is that federal politicians use telecommunications policy as a way of garnering votes.

Of course, politicians need to garner votes. Utopian views of the world are at best naive or at worst unconstructive. But there is some merit to contemporary (if we consider the views of Adam Smith as contemporary)  ideas about striking a balance between government and business.

So tonight while researching my family history (my great-grandfather was a foreman with General  Motors-Holden in Sydney after the Second World War) , I stumbled upon this ripper of a quote from the National Archives:

Although Cabinet identified two major drawbacks to the Holden proposal – a limited range of vehicles and uncertainty in the plan – the low requirement for government assistance made it attractive. The major drawback of Ford’s plan was the requirement for a high level of assistance.

Holden's prominence during Australia's "golden age" of manufacturing was brought about by a company that did not need government assistance. Meanwhile, the founder of mass production (Ford) wanted more from government. I was astounded.

It is bizarre how difficult it can be to make comment, even when based on empirical research, without being on the receiving end of well-meaning criticism that smacks of ideology. I am sure others could make the same claim of me.

But I wonder if one could compare a series of important Australian industries and their ongoing success in relation to the amount of government "assistance" that was provided? Of course, how we measure success would be an important exercise. And, no doubt, where government subsidies reigned supreme only the foolhardiest of industries would be hamstrung.

Yet if you were to think immediately of four things that come to mind when thinking about Australia: football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars, none of these things come from government.

So I find it rather, let's say - unexpected  - that Australians today (at least those I am exposed to whenever I write about telecommunications) think that government intervention in the market is a thing to be encouraged. I can think of three recent examples that suggest otherwise:

1. Kevin Rudd's "green car" initiative. They were going anyway and now they are gone.
2. The "Home Insulation Scheme". Need I say more.
3. Anything the Coalition ever said, especially the bits about citizens pulling their weight. 

If we look at the scorecard, then in telecommunications at least, the government is having a shocker. But what shocks me most is that Australians think that our governments were ever any good at industry policy. Am I just getting old? I was only five at the time but I knew Whitlam was having a shocker.

And I think, when it comes to telecommunications, that most modern day "believers" don't remember how bad it was to have to deal with Telecom Australia. Seriously, it was like asking your ex-girlfriend to give you back your records. If this doesn't make sense, then you never had anything at all to do with Telecom Australia, or, in its previous form and (as its contractors used to refer to it), "pig's meat and gravy" (PMG). It is like asking for a well-deserved pay-rise from a tight-arsed boss.

Either that or you don't know what I mean by records.

What else can I say to convince the ideologues? Probably nothing, But what happens when the Australian government does not get overly involved in industry? Holden.

Keep that in mind the next time you think that the Australian Government has all the answers about our industrial future. I believe that the average Australian holds the key. Only they have never been allowed to use it.

It's time Australia's Government let go of its penal colony attitude and gave up its hold on industry. If you think not, then please show me evidence to the contrary.

Turnbull's plan to speed up the delivery of Australia's broadband network

Photo by Michael de Percy

Michael de Percy, University of Canberra

The number of people involved in Australia’s national broadband network (nbn) is set to double to about 9,000 after Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull this week announced plans to recruit and train an extra 4,500 workers.

This will make it even faster to roll out the rest of the national broadband network, and no doubt symbolises the Coalition’s leaner, quicker-to-roll-out version of the original NBN – re-branded earlier this year as a lower-case nbn for a reported A$700,000.

But why the rush?

Let’s have a look at what has been achieved in the past six years.

In the beginning…

The Howard Government struggled with all things internet. Australia had “fraudband” because it was too expensive and slow.

Then Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, said a national broadband network was “nation-building for the 21st century”. And after Labor’s election, NBN Co was born on April 9, 2009.

However, the NBN took a back seat due to Labor’s leadership turmoil. Except when the Coalition poked fun at the NBN for taking too long. NBN Co blamed its partners and then its boss quit.

Things were going downhill.

From NBN to nbn

The Coalition’s cost-benefit analysis, released almost a year ago, found Labor’s NBN was extravagant. NBN was stripped back by changing Labor’s fibre-to-the-home model to a multi-technology mix (MTM) model. Slower speeds but rolled out faster – that was the plan.

Now Turnbull is having a bob each way with the broadband network. Finish the bits already started with fibre, then finish the bits that haven’t been started yet using multiple and ultimately cheaper technologies. Makes sense.

Although he would probably prefer to let the market sort it all out. If people want broadband, then somebody will sell it to them. Except maybe in the bush. Then the government should help make it work. Kevin07 thought government could do it all better – that’s why he set up NBN.

So Turnbull had little choice but to continue with the contracts set up by Labor. That’s the trouble with building things: it’s expensive to change your mind once the building starts.

It’s also hard to tear up contracts once they’ve started. Do this too many times and big business might stop building things for you. And when you are a politician, this makes you look bad.

The whole point of NBN was to fix the “fraudband”. Now we have nbn with a MTM. Occasionally the Coalition still struggles with internet things, but not Turnbull. He wants to ensure Australia gets the nbn sooner rather than later.

How are we travelling?

Well, it depends. The whole point of spending billions of dollars on NBN (nbn) was to give Australians better access to faster broadband. Since last election, NBN was available to 1 in 50 households. Now nbn is available to 1 in 10. Things are looking up.

But how do we stack up against other countries?

I usually compare Australia with Canada, but it can be helpful to compare Australia with other countries in the OECD too. This is how Australia fared before Kevin07:

Broadband Subscribers per 100 People, June 2007.
OECD Broadband Growth and Policies in OECD Countries 2008

Then, just before NBN Co was born, Australians appear to have stopped subscribing while they waited patiently for better broadband. Compared with other OECD member countries, this meant that Australian broadband was worse than before the 2007 election:

Broadband Subscribers per 100 People, December 2008.
OECD Broadband Portal (Accessed 29 July 2012)

The trouble is, after six years of NBN (nbn), things are still heading south:

OECD Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, by technology, December 2014
OECD Broadband Portal (Accessed 3 August 2015)

Now let’s look at broadband speeds. To make it easier to read the graph, I have chosen to compare Australia with New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Greece. I chose the last one because Greece is having problems at the moment and it might help put things in perspective.

The graph below shows the fraction of subscribers with connection speeds of greater than 15mbps. Remember, NBN was meant to provide up to 100mbps and nbn at least 25mbps:

Akamai State of the Internet Report: Speeds greater than 15mbps.
Akamai State of the Internet Connectivity Visualizations

What does it all mean? I’ve argued for many years that government control of the market stifles industry. That’s not to say that smarter ways of privatising Telstra or deploying NBN couldn’t have made a difference. We can hypothesise until the cows come home.

But one of the richest OECD countries – Australia – has broadband speeds closer to one of the poorest – Greece.

Has it been worth it?

Streaming services such as Netflix should boost fixed-line broadband demand. This might prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy for the Coalition.

But when the next new technology comes along, government shouldn’t try to second-guess the market. Indeed, where government wasn’t meddling, the market has worked. Australia is a world leader in mobile broadband, for example:

OECD Mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, by technology, December 2014
OECD Broadband Portal (Accessed 3 August 2015)

It’s getting harder to see the public value in nbn. But it’s too late to stop it now. Better to double the workforce and finish it quickly and quietly. That seems to be Turnbull’s way out of this mess.

Michael de Percy is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at University of Canberra.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.