AN AUSTRALIAN blogger is hoping to highlight what’s going on in Africa by setting up a blogging outpost to get a poverty-stricken community’s voice heard.

• Notable Aussie blogger sent to Africa on a one week awareness mission
• The organisation behind it wants to get the real message heard

Australian blogger and political commentator, Stilgherrian, is preparing himself for a journey to the United Republic of Tanzania on behalf of ActionAid Australia.

The initiative, as part of ActionAid Australia’s merge with Austcare on June 1, will see Stilgherrian flown to Tanzania on a mission to raise awareness of what’s actually happening in poverty-stricken countries such as Africa.

His mission is to use every available channel open to him in a “fight to end poverty and injustice”.

By embracing technology he intends to blog and hopefully upload a daily video diary of what he sees, as well as teach the local aid workers on how to do the same thing before he leaves.

The strategist behind it all, Fi Bendall, told Tech Wired that the mission, as simple as it may sound, is far from it.

“It’s been quite a long process,” she said.

Bendall added that she thought ActionAid Australia were making a bold decision by using her chosen strategy of sending a notable blogger to Africa.

Bendall said that her research showed that being transparent and open is what the mission aimed at doing.

“It’s refreshing to see them (ActionAid Australia) take this approach,” she said.

“The research says that you’ve got to keep it real.”

This was reaffirmed by the CEO of ActionAid Australia, Archie Law, who described donators as needing to see an outcome, not just a one way conversation.

“We know from research that for the public to engage with social causes, they need to see outcomes from their dollar donations, not just the devastation,” he said.

Stilgherrian and Archie will both be venturing off to Tanzania in the next couple of weeks upon approval from locals.

Tech Wired spoke with Stilgherrian just before he had his vaccinations in preparation for the trip.

When asked what he hoped to achieve from going on the mission, he said he was just going to report it how he saw it.

“As I’m going independently I don’t have to stick to a particular policy line,” he said

“I can just say what I’m seeing and honestly report my emotional reaction.”

He added that his other reason for agreeing to the mission was to experience what it would be like to live in a poverty-stricken country.

Armed with the essentials, some knowledge, and satellite phone technology, Stilgherrian doesn’t know what lies ahead.

“…(It’ll be) a very intense week of being exposed to an awful lot of things all at once,” he said.

Stilgherrian’s mission can be followed at http://stilgherrian.com/toto/

The interview was conducted with Professor Reginald Coutts, one of the six panel members for the National Broadband Network.

You can read the full story here: Minchin rebuked by Expert Panel ‘whistleblowers’

Apologies for any grammatical mistakes in advance.

Ben: Has there been a cost benefit analysis on the NBN?

The government made an announcement on April 7th.

In terms of the broad directions of the FTTP, the core back bone, broadband, wireless, and satellite backhaul et cetera,it is all consistent with what we recommended.

In terms of the broad capital costs the number forty-three billion dollars is the original costings that were certainly around in the industry for FTTN, which is fibre just going to a node in the street and not all the way to the home.

The numbers that were really being talked about, total cover costs, were about fifteen billion dollars, of which the Government obviously was talking about 4.7.

If you look at a number of quite comprehensive reports that have been done in the UK, the BSG reports, that are all in the public domain…(they suggest that) FTTN, all the way to the home, you sort of multiply on the amount of capital, it varies on many factors, anywhere between 3 and 5.

What contributes to about 80 percent of that capital cost is what we call civil engineering works.

For example if you decide, as they did in Tasmania, to use overhead (power lines) rather than bury, that makes a significant impact on that capital cost.

If you’ve got access to ducts of not only Telstra, but other utilities, that can make a significant difference.

Ben: To put your quote of Telstra having to be a part of the solution, what do you say to that?

For the proposed NBN, in my view, Telstra has to be part of the solution, not the solution.

I chose those words carefully because Telstra having not only significant infrastructure right around Australia in terms of the copper plants, the ducts et cetera, but also because it actually does have fibre connecting all the exchanges right around the country, but also because it’s such a significant market participant, so it has to be part of the solution.

That can range from them being an investor in the NBN….potentially leasing some of its infrastructure… a whole number of options.

You can’t do something like this (NBN) and pretend Telstra don’t exist.

Ben: Did the Rudd government dream up a figure of fourty-three billion dollars?

I’d dispute that.

My response is that there is a broad basis for the number.

That goes back to….the various economic modelling that has been done in the public domain, but also a number of key consultants around the world including Ovum…who’ve done various examples of both capital and operational costs of NBN vs. FTTH.

Ben: Was there further analysis after your report?

I’m not aware of what further analysis they did subsequent to our work since the 21st of January…and I know they did further analysis.

Certainly the government has been doing a lot of work.

Ben: You guys didn’t come up with the figure?

No.

This is was what annoyed me particularly in Minchin’s statement…that the panel were not asked to evaluate the governments proposal…we’d been disbanded, we’d done out job.

I’m saying that figure is consistent with the sort of number that I’m…aware of coming out of  a whole number of studies.

He’s (Nick Minchin) being the minister for opposition…I mean I guess he’s doing his job, if that’s the job specification.

In the Prime Ministers new hip way of announcing things, today through micro-blogging service Twitter, the Prime Minister announced funding for NBN linesman training.

Julia & I just announced $16m investment for Gipps TAFE @ Chadstone. Part of nearly $1b TAFE modernisation investment across the country.

Gipps TAFE helps train linesman to help roll out the national broadband network which will take 25,000 jobs for 7 years. Massive!

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra today, Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, said that Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy was “positively youthful”, though doesn’t deserve to be a Parliamentarian any longer.

“Stephen Conroy appears positively youthful,” he said.

Turnbull remained speculative of the Government’s broadband decision, noting that the National Broadband Network (NBN) had no financial analysis released with its announcement.

“This is a man that has completely bungled the National Broadband tender and presumably suggested to the Prime Minister that they announce a 43-billion dollar broadband project without any financial analysis at all,” he told delegates

In concluding his analysis of another Minister and Senator Stephen Conroy, he stated that Conroy didn’t deserve to be a minister at all.

“Now I don’t think either of those two Parliamentarians, relatively useful youthful though they may be, deserve to be…Ministers or even in Parliament based on their capacity and performance.”

Professor Reginald Coutts says the Government’s U-turn on the National Broadband Network is very much in the spirit of the recommendations the expert panel made in its report.

Nick Minchin, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has told Tech Wired that he remains defensive of the Governments 42 billion dollar National Broadband Network after Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, addressed the Nation on Tuesday last week at the National Press Club.

Speaking at the National Press Club on Tuesday last week, Senator Stephen Conroy said that the opposition had failed to invest in Nation-building broadband infrastructure.

“We should not be surprised that the Opposition fails to grasp the importance of this nation-building initiative,” said Senator Stephen Conroy.

“After all, they failed to undertake critical infrastructure investment for 12 long years,” he said.

Speaking with a spokesperson for the Shadow Minister, Tech Wired was told that this was absolute nonsense.

“He (Senator Stephen Conroy) has promised us the world, but delivered very little,” the spokesperson said.

When asked if Opposition believed that Senator Conroy was copying them with the offering of wireless services for the 10 percent not included in the FTTP (Fibre to the Premise) build, they agreed.

“We took to the election to deliver wireless services for the last-mile,”

“Conroy is now building a model very similar to that of our, now scrapped, OPEL plan.”

Responding to Senator Conroy’s latest announcment of “fast-tracking” backhaul around Australia, Tech Wired was told by the Shadow Minister’s spokesperson that under their scrapped OPEL plan they would’ve rolled out a large amount of backhaul.

“Under our OPEL plan 15,000 kilometres of new back haul was going to be rolled out,” the spokesperson said.

The Shadow Minister himself, Senator Nick Minchin, told Tech Wired in a brief phone interview that he remained sceptical as to why the Government won’t release their report conducted by the expert panel as to why the Government brought forward the decision to build a FTTP network.

When informed about Tech Wired’s failed attempt at retrieving the NBN expert panel report under FOI (Freedom of Information) laws before the NBN announcement, Minchin said that he knew about it and was currently looking at possible ways to retrieve the report now that the announcement is complete and the Government continues to refuse access to it.

“We’re having a look at it,” Nick Minchin told Tech Wired.

“We’ll be looking at all the opportunities available in the Senate to get those reports,” he said.

“It’s pretty outrageous to abandon its (the Government’s) first policy and expect the Parliament to support it without any evidence,” he added.

His spokesperson told us that they believed the government was hiding something.

“The assumption we would make is that there is something to hide,” the spokesperson said.

The Government released all but a summary from the expert panel report, which we known consists of 913 pages thanks to the FOI application.

“They only released a 3 page extract that tells us bugger all,” Minchin responded in our phone interview.

When asked if the Opposition would accept the Government’s report if commercial interests were redacted, they said yes.

“If there is some particular part that needs to be blacked out, we don’t mind,” the spokesperson said.

The Opposition is also asking the Government to release coverage maps of where the FTTP network will be rolled out.

“We’ve called on them (the Government) to release coverage maps as we’re getting a lot of angst from rural Australia that they’re going to miss out,” the spokesperson for Minchin said.

Responding to Tech Wired’s request for comment, the Department for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy issued the following statement:

The Government has released the observations of the expert panel in an extract from the evaluation report.

The remainder of the expert panel’s report contains confidential commercial information so will not be released.

The ACCC report also contains confidential information.

The Minister has asked the Department to ascertain whether or not there may be aspects of the ACCC report suitable for release.

Ever wondered where the Government came up with the figure of 4.7 billion dollars for a National Broadband Network?

Page 47 of Telstra’s Digital Compact & National Broadband Plan document, that’s where.

At CommsDay Summit’s 2009 annual dinner the industry decided that a consortium was most likely to win the tender for Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN).

With 34.1 percent of the industry deciding a consortium, a staggering 29.4 percent said nobody was going to win the NBN, suggesting a denouncement due next week from the Minister for Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy.

The results were formed from a survey of readers of the popular CommsDay newsletter and magazine, mostly of whom are staff members of Australian ISPs and equipment providers. Many other questions were asked including what the industry thought about Senator Stephen Conroy’s ISP-level filtering scheme. 48 percent of those surveyed believed the policy formed a new Orwellian state and that it should be abandoned, whilst 26.63% thought it was a policy that was well-intentioned but remained technically unachievable.

When it came to how the industry was dealing with the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) 44.1 percent said they were expanding into new markets, 28.6% were re-negotiating with suppliers and 17.8 percent were dealing with no crisis at all.

So if the NBN does in fact get built, what method of access will be used? That’s another question that was posed to the industry who favoured Fibre To The Node.

In just over a weeks time Tech Wired will be attending Australia’s largest telecommunications conference, CommsDay.

The conference is held once every year as a gathering for the major players involved in Australia’s telecommunications industry. From Senator Stephen Conroy representing the Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy, to various Internet Service Provider representatives; the conference will discuss topics such as the National Broadband Network and emerging wireless technologies.

Optus, Internode, Pipe, Vocus, Australia Japan Cable, Basslink, Telarus, BigAir, Kordia, Unwired and others will be among those presenting.

We’re seeking you to leave a comment below as to what questions you would like answered by the big players.

Live coverage of CommsDay 2009 will be provided by Tech Wired throughout the day, so stay tuned.

The Department for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has refused Tech Wired access to documents containing information regarding the National Broadband Network.

Received just yesterday was a 17-page document containing several reasons as to why the Government will not release The Panel of Experts’ Report detailing suggestions for a winning NBN tender.

You can download the 17-page report here.

Nikki Vajrabukka, Acting Assistant Secretary told Tech Wired:

“I decide that the Report is wholly exempt under section 34 and section 36 of the FOI Act and therefore it is not to be released”.

Section 34 details the release of Cabinet documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The images below shows why a Cabinet document can not be released:

Since when did the Experts’ Panel Report become a cabinet document? According to the 17-page report, it refers to letters sent out to the panel members which suggest they:

“…provide its recommendations to the Government”

The report also states a press release from Senator Conroy saying:

“…the Government is now considering the Panel of Experts’ Report”

Nikki Vajrabukka decided that “the Government” should be taken to mean “the Cabinet” and therefore a refusal to the report.

As to section 36? As the report is an internal working document described below in the image, it is also refused release.

You may note that release is granted if the document is in the public’s interest, but of course the Department denied that on the grounds that:

“…the factors against disclosure of the Report outweigh the factors in favour of disclosure of the Report. That is, disclosure would in my view be contrary to the public interest. Having regard to the contents of the Report, I have decided the Report is wholly exempt under subsection 36(1).”

It’s clear as to why the government don’t want anyone knowing what’s in the report. With journalists speculating left, right and centre, why not take an evidence based approach I thought? Though, it seems I was left with a dead parrot.

So what did we learn?

Tech Wired learned that:

“The Minister [Senator Conroy] will make the final decision on the outcomes of the RFP process following consultation with  Cabinet and Cabinet agreement to any proposed legislative changes”

We also learned that the ACCC’s separate advice will be attached to the Panel of Experts’ Report as part of the NBN process and consultation with Cabinet.

As to what remains unknown is the day Senator Conroy will announce the winning tenderer, will it be CommsDay? With Kevin Rudd out of town, many say not, but if that’s the case it’ll be past Conroy’s time (stated in Hansard) of:

“By March”.