That's right folks, the government estimates that the new National Broadband Network (NBN) they're going to fly solo with will cost working-aged Australians (15-64) approximately $2,935 each. That's assuming the project is completed -- our government has a bad habit of either quitting mid-way (i.e. after an election) or having the project substantially increase in both duration and cost.

• Government rejects all five private sector bidders for the national broadband network, saying they do not provide value for money.
• National broadband "fibre-to-the-home" network now to be built over eight years by a company established by the Government.
• Network will give 90 per cent of homes, schools and businesses a connection of 100 megabits a second, 100 times faster than now.
• Those remaining will get a service of 12 megabits a second through wireless technologies.
• Will support 25,000 jobs a year for each year of construction, with 37 000 jobs in the peak year of construction.
• PM Kevin Rudd says infrastructure project is the biggest ever undertaken by an Australian government.
• Majority share of the company will be held by the Government, with private sector investment capped at 49 per cent.
• Up to $43 billion will be invested by the company in the project, including the $4.7 billion already allocated by the Government.
• Once the project has been up and running for five years, the Government will begin selling its stake in the company. -- Source
  

The government, in their wisdom, decided that the private sector couldn't provide 'value for money'. I suppose nothing would provide government with value though, those pesky private sector companies actually have to think about their customers and shareholders, while the government doesn't pay for anything themselves -- they simply take it from the taxpayers! How is the government creating these jobs? Everyone knows that the government doesn't produce anything, don't they? These 'jobs' are simply jobs that the private sector can no longer create (productive jobs I might add). They're jobs for something the people, individuals, aren't demanding: not only that, but they're jobs plus a layer of bureaucracy, in other words wasted capital.

All day the government has been stressing this is 'stimulus'; yet it's nothing more than fulfilling #6 on the Community Manifesto! We're moving further and further towards a socialist state and the noose around our necks has just been tightened again. If they really wanted Australian's to have fair internet, they would remove all of their regulations and controls on the industry; they would allow the market to function. But we all know Rudd doesn't have the people's interests at hand.

Then they have the galls to say they're going to start selling their stake -- that will surely end well! Why don't the government just skip this middle step (the NBN) and allow private competition with previous government monopolies (Tel$tra) to be free and unhampered!? Privatising this network, when the time comes, is hardly fair: the government has taken from taxpayers around the country to fund this project and is going to ask us to pay them, again, for the privilege of privatisation? Why is the government entitled to the revenue from this taxpayer funded project? It's ridiculous.

I'm not looking forward to being an Australian taxpayer when we eventually have to pay for all of this Ruddish. Expect either inflation (courtesy of the banking monopoly the government has: the RBA) or massive tax hikes or both in the future -- perhaps a return to the 1950s of 75% income tax is on the cards?