I was going to give an in-depth commentary on the outcome of
The Ministerial Inquiry
into Telecommunications -- but there seems little point.
If it's something that interests you then I recommend that you download the
report and examine it in detail -- particularly section 9 which deals with
the Kiwi Share and the way it affects Net users.
In effect it says what most Net users have been claiming all along but what
some gutless politicians have refused to acknowledge: that the Kiwi Share
covers Net use from residential addresses.
It seems that, in the wake of the Ministerial Inquiry, we will have cheaper
Internet access -- but in the wake of the Clear Telecom interconnect deal --
it will no longer be free. Does that sound strangely paradoxical to you?
For He's A Jolly Good Fellow
My hat (and I hope yours too) goes off to Richard Poole, who has published a
full-page advert in this morning's paper lamenting the government's attitude to
stemming the brain drain.
The organiser of the advertisement also sent a letter to Helen Clark querying
the government's strategy for overcoming the flight of our best and brightest.
Can you believe it -- she passed the letter on to Jim "the ostrich" Anderton
who responded in almost exactly the same way he did to my letter by simply
saying that the government had already adopted policies that it was sure
would do the trick.
Yeah... and I recall Cullen saying that the dip in the Kiwi dollar was only
an aberration -- that's when it was at 42 cents to the US dollar -- and now,
a month or so later it fell below the 40 cent barrier. What's worse,
we've now got the reserve bank claiming that "stagflation" is looming and
we could all be at the mercy of high interest rates, rising inflation and
static growth.
Static growth? Well if the next quarterly report is negative like the last one
then we'll be in recession mate!
Is this (and the previous) government so thick that they really can't see that
their policies are not working? The dollar continues to fall, our most valuable
export is the very people that should be our future prosperity, our growth has
stalled, prices are rising, consumer and business confidence is low,
and the spectre of a new round of wage demands looms large on the horizon.
How long can these people continue to pretend that this isn't happening or that
it will all sort itself out without any kind of action of the type that
we elect governments to take?
One of the characteristics often observed amongst the small group of people
who repeatedly appear in our bankruptcy courts is that they tend to ignore
their liabilities -- preferring to convince themselves that the problem
either doesn't exist or will go away by itself. Should we be worried that our
government has adopted the same attitude to dealing with the nation's
most pressing problems?
What's worse... Energy Minister Pete Hodgson has come out strongly criticising
this initiative -- claiming it to be yet another case of the Business Round
Table generating "endless negative publicity about their country."
It seems that the government has decided that attack is the best form of
defense against reasoned and sensible criticism of their ineptitude. Oh,
and by the way, Mr Poole isn't a member of the Business Round Table so it
appears that Mr Hodgson is using straw-men because he and his government
really don't have a leg to stand on. Shame on you Pete!
There are no shortage of people willing to offer help to the government and
offer extremely valuable input towards sovling the problems we face so now
it's time we all got together and did something about it.
As I have mentioned earlier, Dr Cullen has, to his credit, invited me to
go down to Wellington and discuss the issues -- all I have to do is find the
time and money to do this. I'm certainly trying hard but there's a little bit
of a catch-22 here insomuch as some of the current government policies see me
forced to waste inordinate amounts of my time on "compliance" tasks that are
decidedly non-productive and compromise the amount of time and money I have available
for such missions.
Of course Dr Cullen and his peers are always welcome to drop in here for a coffee
and a chat.
As always, your feedback is welcomed.
