I was going to leave this thread alone, but one thing keeps sticking in my mind. Water infrastructure is a state owned monopoly. Telecoms is not, even though

I was going to leave this thread alone, but one thing keeps sticking in my mind. Water infrastructure is a state owned monopoly. Telecoms is not, even though Telstra dominate residential connections. A friend of mine wanted to connect water to his house down a short laneway (about 100 metres) in a rural area. The water authorities wanted $15,000 and 6 months to do it. He asked Telstra to connect the phoneline. It was done for free within two weeks. That is the difference between a government monopoly and private enterprise. If Telstra was still Telecom Australia, I have no doubt that the line would have taken twice as long and probably cost something as well. You might scoff and say that couldn't possibly happen with the NBN, but in all seroiusness, anyone who thinks setting up a massive government beauracracy will result in anything but this type of behaviour hasn't had much experience with governments. The role of Government should be to design the laws in such a way as to encourage investment, and to leave that investment to the private sector where the private sector is willing to invest. Where they are not because of low population density, government subsidies can be provided to private companies to do that investment.