Shareswatch Australia

For a while I have resisted writing about the political situation in Australia simply because it is too depressing.  Of all the possible political outcomes after the election last year it looks like the Australian people have ended up with the worst case scenario – a leaderless dysfunctional government adrift at a time when major ecomic challenges loom.

The devastating floods across much of Australia should remind people that Australia has been for a long time, a land of drought and flooding rains. The floods have tragically not only taken lives, but will also have a lasting negative impact on the economy and sadly the Government seems intent on using the floods as an excuse for it’s own poor management of the economy.

After some promising gains in the first part of 2010 the Australian stock market closed down today to finish the year basically unchanged. In plain English the share market essentially did nothing in 2010 and so if the Australian economy is really booming, then this is not being reflected in the performance of the ASX All Ordinaries or S&P/ASX 200.

Over the last few months it has become increasingly difficult to write about the Australian stock market simply because not much has been happening.  During the last 12 months the market has basically moved sideways with just the occasional dip or rally to break up the boredom.

I have been a vocal critic of the National Broadband Network for a long time and was talking about what a mess it would be way before the mainstream media woke up.  So to further illustrate my point I have put together a list of  areas or ways where I believe the taxpayers $43 billion could be better spent and deliver better outcomes for the Australian people.

The Rudd Government still holds a commanding lead over the Opposition according to opinion polls and Kevin Rudd himself enjoys a high popularity rating. But what has Rudd and his team actually delivered to the Australian public in terms of completed projects or successful outcomes?

Like many Australians I have been frustrated for many years over the slow progress that was made in getting affordable high speed internet connections widely available across Australia.  However in order to get a world class communications network deployed we need the private sector to be in the driving seat and for the government to be involved as little as possible.  Yet thanks to government mismanagement, Australia is now about to spend a fortune of taxpayers money to roll-out a national broadband network.

Lost within the turmoil of the $42 billion federal government spend-a-thon and the so called “national economic crisis” has been the issue of the infamous “National Broadband Network”. After ridiculing the Howard government for taking too long to initiate work on this network, all Senator Conroy has managed to do is set things back a few years and we are still effectively nowhere near seeing work start on on this important national infrastructure project.