The Punch: 10 reasons why the Liberals are right about the interweb

First Published on The Punch 28/9/2010

It’s time to put an end to all this partisan negativity. At a time when people are looking to our leaders for vision, it is great to see a political party step up with a long-term vision for the nation.

I am referring of course to the Coalition’s decision to destroy the National Broadband Network and all who promote it and instead uphold Australian values by promoting a more leisurely pace of download.

While the public may be firmly behind the NBN as detailed in today’s Essential Report, I wonder how many have really thought through the implications of faster efficient broadband on their already busy and cluttered lives.

Q. From what you’ve heard, do you favour or oppose the planned national broadband network, or don’t you know enough about it to have an opinion one way or the other?

So in a an attempt to bring some much-needed balance to the issue, the Punch unveils it’s ‘Ten Reasons Why the Liberals Are Right to Slow Down the Inter-web’

1. Because slow things are better – in the same vein as the Slow Food Movement the Slow Download Movement will give people time to smell the roses as they wait for their documents to download.

2. Experts argue the internet is rewiring our brains – it’s making us less creative and shallow thinkers. So the slower it is the less people will use it and we might get some serious work done.

3. At the moment social networking freaks can only bore us stupid with constant updates about their day. Fast broadband means they’ll be able to show us. In realtime.

4. Slower connections will help win the battle against illegal down-loading of content by ensuring the connection times out before the end of the first scene.

5. Justin Bieber was discovered via online video. This shows what dangerous enabling technology we are playing with.

6. The threat of extinction of Apple’s ‘spinning wheel’ aka ‘rainbow ball of doom’, ‘spinning pizza’ . This cute, colourful icon has become an integral part of the daily routine for many office workers as they wait for – it may need protection through heritage laws.

7. We will lose a generation to chat-roulette.

8. It will be good for national health outcomes by forcing you to leave your house to do banking, travel and all the other things you used to go out for.

9. Maintaining the digital divide will give people a reason to put up with the traffic and smog and stay living in cities.

10.Because Queenslanders need to use the internet too.

Peter Lewis, Director, EMC