Communication

Communication always leaves me incomplete
The grass is greener, but it's grown beneath my feet
Love inspiration is a message on a wing
But I have left it in the words you'll never sing

Senator Stephen Conroy is, among other things, the Minister for Communication. One of the projects for which he's responsible is the shutdown of analog television, opening a digital transmission spectrum, and having both broadcasters and viewers shift from analogue to digital.

There are arguments for giving people set-top boxes:

• The government has arbitrarily devalued people's analog-TV assets;


• The boxes don't limit what sort of television set people can have;


• There is a little light on the box that winks at you, and the sorts of dills who worked for the NSW ALP government think it will remind people to vote Labor;

By "people", I refer to the sorts of people for whom a television set is a significant asset, the sorts of people who regard a television set as a major conduit to the world. Some will have made their own arrangements regarding a digital television, while still others need not have a taxpayer-funded set-top box (not even if they earn a paltry $150k). Still, it's a nice thought.

It should be more than a nice thought, though. It should be an actual policy, fully costed and explained in more detailed terms than the dot-points above. It should exclude those who are perfectly capable of buying their own televisions. It should be opt-in rather than opt-out or no-opt, with information available for people who don't speak a lot of English or keep up with latest developments in public policy.

Communication let me down
But I'm left here
Communication let me down
But I'm left here, I'm left here

There should have been a blitz before the Budget explaining the digital switchover, and the compensation for people facing disenfranchisement from a key element of the public sphere. Conroy was the man to do such a thing: for someone brought up politically in the back alleys of Victorian ALP (not the funky, grafitti-covered alleyways of contemporary Melbourne, but those dark with something more than night in which person-to-person interaction is limited to a blade in the ribs), he has proven surprisingly deft in making a case and getting his message through.

The NBN remains a triumph, regardless of the odd little campaign by The Australian about who said what to whom at Alcatel in the '90s (surely no worse than the sort of stuff that goes on in News Ltd's Western European branch offices). Turnbull has dented that juggernaut but not completely defused it, and he has not allayed the suspicion that he'd tweak it a bit, get rid of Mike Kaiser and basically rebadge it as Liberal nation-building, similar to Menzies' opening of the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

Mike Kaiser: there's someone who's been heavily invested in by Labor for a relatively low yield. This is his time to step up, take some flak on the minister's behalf so that he can get on with issues like the digital switchover, or Victorian ALP preselections, or whatever.

Conroy may well have been spooked by Turnbull, but the more accurate answer is probably that he no longer cares. He has, as Neville Wran put it, been up to his eyeballs in blood and shit for so long that he'd rather go snowboarding in Vail with Kerry Stokes than go around foisting set-top boxes on unsuspecting punters.

Telex or tell me, but it's always second-hand
I'm incognito but no rendezvous's been planned
Dictate or relay, I could send it to your home
"Return to Sender" - I could sing it down the phone!

At the very time when the government could do with a tough and uncompromising presence in getting its message across, Conroy has botched what should have been a popular idea: ameliorating rapid technological change with social equity, part of Labor's historic mission etc. He's done it by neglect rather than any obvious or deliberate spite.

Conroy should have explained why set-top boxes are part of bringing everyone along into the twentyfirst century. Installing a set-top box is something so simple he could do it himself, with cameras rolling natch, into some poor old person's home in a marginal seat. A cup of tea, a dig at the Liberals, and it could've made for a substantial set-piece announcement; instead, it's slightly weird policy at best and an expensive boondoggle at worst, indefensible by anyone not fully across what passes for media policy in this country.

If Conroy is fed up, he should just go. If he's got any fight in him, he should fight for people staying in touch with the world around them when their options might be otherwise limited. Allowing Gerry Harvey to rag him over the cost of set-top boxes would have got the goat of old-school Labor, and even stirred up Conroy more than it apparently has. Should Conroy be moved to another portfolio? Does he need a fresh parly sec who can make their name by pushing such a barrow (and who, pray tell, are the bright sparks on Labor's back bench, as opposed to all those dull-eyed hacks just waiting their turn?)?

Communication let me down
But I'm left here
Communication let me down
But I'm left here, I'm left here, I, I, I ...

The digital switchover will look good in retrospect - a bit like the switch to metric measurements, which was similarly mishandled by the McMahon and Whitlam governments. Mishandling a key social equity facet of technological change and assuming that all such changes are going to be bungled is not what this country needs.

The Liberals cannot put up a convincing case that they will handle things better - or even that they understand technological change issues. Lumping it in with "waste" won't do, it shows the Liberals don't understand media or social dimensions of technological change. Conroy can't count on the Liberals continuing to fudge these issues, and to his credit he hasn't until recently.

I'm sitting here by the telephone,
Waiting for the bell to ring
Short change, fumble
Dial-a-heart trouble
And I ain't got time for searching through the rubble, oh no!
Well, I know ...

- Spandau Ballet Communication

The return of George Megalogenis to the national conversation was never more welcome than with this - read the whole article, but I particularly liked:

The Abbott formula is a form of 21st-century Fraserism. Shout your way to power, then do nothing with it because the only thing wrong with Australia, really, was the election of a Labor government.

On the issue of digital communications and the right party to manage the twentyfirst century in all its complexity, surely someone from the government can step up and make the case. This government is led by two backroom operators, and one of them will probably have to go by Christmas. What's Conroy's excuse?