da Scriffles

I swam the Paroo River once on the way back from the Birdsville Races. It was a photography trip with the Queensland College of Art.

After sitting in a little bus for hours I needed solitude and that wide, brown river looked perfect. 

That little river must've been about 500m wide back then. Thanks to the Queensland floods in recent months it's running towards the Murray-Darling River system in NSW/South Australia. 

The Paroo has only ever flooded that far twice before - according to tonight's 7pm ABC news. (April 10, 2010)

The rains are bringing life to the outback after a long dry spell that's seen communities dwindle away.

I was reading all the reports on the Murray-Darling Authority's website and it seems that aging farmers with little help are keeping the place running out there.

Communications, hospitality and leisure services have left isolated regions to die off - we're talking about Australia's salad bowl here.

Young people too moved away to study and find jobs. Banks and schools closed.

Some communities in the Murray-Darling Basin still thrive but they are only the ones near big regional towns like Toowoomba - one of Australia's fastest growing regional centres.

Now the State Government's mooted this idea of having two capital cities in Queensland Townsville and Brisbane to stop the clutter of suburban spread, traffic gridlock and overpopulation in our capital.

I reckon we need to build grids of cities across the Great Dividing Range: Brisbane, Charleville, Charters Towers, Townsville - cities that are near rivers. Rivers always mean life.

Then you connect them up with a river of broadband and we build communities - not residential suburbs with no public transport, jobs or opportunities - we can accommodate that big population the Federal Government is talking about building - the one that the community doesn't want.

When I drove through the mountains of NSW at Christmas time I found some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen - on both sides of the range. All that land.

It's funny isn't it. We who live here don't actually appreciate the opportunities we have here.

But the refugees who keep arriving in leaky boats and who are now cramped on Christmas Island - all they see is opportunity. That's why they're willing to risk it all on the toss and pitch of the ocean to get here. Would you pack up your kids and hop a broken down hovel of a boat for a holiday? 

I attended my first Screen Producers of Australia Queensland branch meeting this week. And this topic of broadband - as far as I'm concerned it's like the HOLY GRAIL!

We debated the fate of Australian film - it's on on-going debate that started decades back - but this was an interesting session because experienced feature film producers are now talking about doing interactive stories and asking the question: Does Screen Australia (Australia's main funding body for film) need to change its funding criteria to support 360 productions - not lump the interactive stuff in the budget for a "feature" film but actually fund Transmedia Productions. I know... HELLO! But it made my heart sing to hear established practitioners raising the question I've been thinking about for years.

The problem is still BROADBAND.  Australia can't support transmedia storytelling because we have God-awful broadband - even if the people here are the world's most prolific users of social media. This ain't Korea.

And there's another problem! People still want to do co-productions with Hollywood when we have Korea on our doorstep. Have you seen Korean films? They are AMAZING storytellers not to mention the production quality.

The installation of National Broadband Network (NBN) will be like the flooding of the Paroo and the Murray-Darling River - life-giving properties. But business and politics are still slugging it out over that one too. Never mind the national interest. If they had to build the Snowy River Hydro-Electric Scheme today it would still be a pipe dream.

Are Australian values dead? I think those values I see in my 92-year-old grandmother who lived on the land without electricity or running water for a significant part of her life has different values.

Perhaps those values do still exist in the hearts of those refugees on Christmas Island.

Do we really know what Australian values are any more?

And don't say mateship! Say cronyism.

Say all for one and... "gee how does that go again?"

Broadband is not just infrastructure - it represents the hopes, the dreams, the survival and the future of young people, farmers, teachers, business people, entrepreneurs, students, the elderly, the sick.

It represents a creative nation which has been waiting to be born since the Keating Government was thrown out - along with the visionary Creative Nation policy. WASTE!

Before the Internet took hold, Paul Keating recognised the value of digital "CONTENT" and "CREATIVITY" in a digital economy.

So when I discovered Paul Keating was at the University of Queensland's Centennial Oration by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz recently I had to ask why no one ever took up the Creative Nation vision since.

"They don't understand the information economy," he said.

Creative Nation talked about CD ROMs and such now replaced by websites and blogs and interactivity yet to be created and enjoyed - such as augmented reality. 

Creative Nation captured my imagination in 1994 - I was an arts reporter for the Courier-Mail furiously writing stories that almost snared Naisda away from Sydney to live in Brisbane's Powerhouse.

A lot of good gets thrown out when governments change - as public servants know.

As I listened to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy at a community meeting this week, I tossed around my objections to the silly idea of a general internet filter and my fear of losing the NBN - just like we lost Creative Nation. I don't know whether the Opposition's broadband policy will work. I do know that the NBN is underway. I believe it's as crucial to the future of this country as addressing climate change. 

I've waited for someone to come along again who could resurrect the Creative Nation vision. Now there's a chance - the National Broadband Network is that chance. Funny but ordinary people - like those at Stephen Conroy's community meeting at Mansfield State School - do understand the digital economy. They LIVE it! The loss of the NBN will be deeply felt by many. WASTE!

The Government's announced $11B Telstra deal  retrains all of Telstra's linesmen to work on broadband fibre optic instead of copper which is being pulled out of the ground.

The Government has even forked out for Telstra to meet its "universal service obligation" to provide equitable services to regional and isolated communities - THAT is impressive! 

We want migrants to move west don't we? Well they need infrastructure too to secure their future and become productive citizens. I'd move if there was broadband.

Telstra abhors the imposition of the universal service obligation because there's no profit - the deal protects Telstra shareholders! 

Considering Telstra's plummeting fortunes - people tossing in fixed lines (copper or the twisted pair) - this is like a lifeline, isn't it?

Conroy said the new broadband plans offered by Primus, Telstra, Optus, iiNet vary from $30-$130 for voice & data -  25 MB download speeds but only 3MB upload speeds.

Townsville, Albion, Ascot, Nundah, Toowoomba, Springfield Lakes as well as Armidale and Brunswick rollouts are next.  Townsville will be live in March-April.

The NBN workers continue the rollout despite the uncertainly of not knowing if they have jobs after Saturday - if a Tony Abbott Government is elected.

Are we a "young" and "vital" nation? It doesn't feel like it. ALL this negativity. WASTE!

Meanwhile, there's a school in Gladstone with kids learning Korean who are looking forward to video conferences with Korean classrooms - video conferencing requires fast upload as well as fast download which is not possible often on wireless, as being offered by the Opposition.

Creativity is forged by hardship but in the end there's got to be OPPORTUNITY. Jericho, Emerald, Darwin are on the same map as Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane - the NBN map.

I guess I'm the only one who felt the loss of Creative Nation. I even kept the press release and book.

I DON'T want to hear about the debt Mr Abbott - I want to hear about investment in the future, in people, in infrastructure, in a Creative Nation which will pay it's debts by building a new economy.