Why voters are angry about Australia's internet, The New Daily, 22 June, 2016.

http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/2016/06/22/australia-internet-cost/

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Why voters are angry about Australia’s internet

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Jun 22, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

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Industry bodies say we must take “decisive action” or fall further in web rankings.


Many Australians want a better deal. Photo: Getty


Leading industry body the Australian Computer Society has issued a dramatic call for the nation’s political parties to confront the problems afflicting Australia’s internet.

We are ranked 60th in the world for internet speeds, below the US, Canada, most of Asia and most of Europe, according to the highly respected Akamai State of the Internet report for the final quarter of 2015.

Australia also has some of the most expensive internet in the developed world. We ranked 76th for the cost of our broadband plans, the World Economic Forum estimated in 2015. This put us behind the US (71) and far behind Japan (23) and the United Kingdom (7) – on figures adjusted for exchange rates, but not relative cost of living.

• Bill Shorten’s savvy NBN tactic
• Voter fury rising over sluggish web speeds
• Rural internet ‘like the third world’: Q&A

Voters are definitely noticing. The nation’s telecommunications have become a red-hot election issue, especially in rural areas, which often suffer much slower (or non-existent) speeds than the major cities.

Industry Minister Christopher Pyne distinguished himself at the beginning of the election campaign by declaring that most Australians really don’t need fast internet, a “poor people don’t drive cars” moment. For the Coalition, the debate has gone downhill ever since.

This week’s release of an Election Manifesto by the Australian Computer Society upped the ante. Its president, Anthony Wong, called on Australia’s leaders to take decisive action.

“The information age is driving a depth and pace of change which is unprecedented in human history,” Mr Wong said in a statement.



“Without a high-quality and pervasive broadband footprint, a nation cannot compete effectively on the world stage.”

Laurie Patton, head of advocacy group Internet Australia, told The New Daily that Singapore now had internet speeds 100 times faster than Australia, which is rapidly falling behind the rest of the world. The failure to embrace optical fibre and instead fall back on mixed technologies, especially the ageing Telstra copper network, was a retrograde step and it was becoming impossible for Australia to compete internationally.

“If we are falling behind already, imagine what it will be like 10-15 years from now,” Mr Patton said. “We have dropped 30 places just in the last few years and we’re now 60th in the global rankings.

“Australia has ambitions to become an innovation nation. How can this happen if we have a second-rate broadband network?” he added. “It’s time for the government to accept that what seemed like a good idea has turned out to have created delays, increased costs and we’ve ended up with an inferior product.”


Rural voters have expressed anger on ABC’s Q&A and social media about slow speeds and slow NBN rollout. Photo: Getty/The New Daily

Mr Turnbull has been copping considerable criticism over low speeds, high costs, extensive rollout delays and a blowout in costs of the National Broadband Network, all of which he denies.

This week Mr Turnbull told the ABC: “What we’re doing is getting all Australians hooked up to broadband much, much faster and much, much cheaper and the runs are on the board.”

Documents leaked to the media earlier this year showed massive cost blowouts, extensive delays and multiple implementation problems.

A raid by the Australian Federal Police on Senator Stephen Conroy’s office in relation to the leak gave a free kick to Labor leader Bill Shorten.

“It relates to his embarrassment over the fact that there was a massive blowout of costs of billions and billions of dollars, and of course huge delays in the rollout of the NBN,” Mr Shorten said.

Senator Nick Xenophon has described the revelation that four million Australians have no access to internet as “discriminatory and counterproductive”.

Theorists like Manuel Castells, author of The Network Society, have argued that countries with high-quality internet, and an education system engaging the public in how to use it, are jumping forward in terms of social progress and the creation of a productive, well informed community.

At the other end of the spectrum, in countries such as Australia with poor quality internet and unsupportive education systems, the technology is having a negative effect by creating a kind of “ponding of ignorance” where it is used for little more than gossip.

A kind of hourglass effect.

Unfortunately, it seems Australia is on the wrong end of the hourglass.

Lone wolf massacres are on the rise, experts warn 17 June, 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/06/17/lone-wolf-massacres-increasing-orlando/

Lone wolf massacres are on the rise, experts warn



8:46pm, Jun 17, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON




This week’s Orlando massacre and slaying of a British MP point to a troubling trend.


The Orlando shooting prompted special tributes like this one. Photo: Getty


The number of people killed in lone wolf massacres is increasing, as is the number of incidents, in a violent trend that has national security experts worried.

On the surface the killing of British Labour MP Jo Cox by Tommy Mair, 52, was motivated by opposition to Britain remaining in the European Union, and the Orlando gay club massacre by Omar Mateen, 29, either by homophobia or Islamic extremism. They appear to have little in common.

But experts say there are in fact a number of commonalities, with increasing numbers of ideologically motivated killings from lone wolves taking up arms against the state.

• Pulse nightclub shooter ‘was a gay club regular’• Australian cattle being ‘bludgeoned in Vietnam’
• Gay Greens candidate shares ‘bigoted’ pic

Associate Professor of Sociology at Victoria University Ramon Spaaij told The New Daily that rather than being members of groups, many of recent killers had been inspired by them.

“Rather than clearly and solely being politically motivated, which is how we think about terrorism, it is a complex mix of political motivation and personal grievance,” he said.


Anders Breivik murdered 77 people in Norway. Photo: Getty

“One really strong common trait is moral righteousness, a worldview divided into good and evil, and a strong sense of being on the right side of history. They are trying to destroy an enemy that is encroaching on society.”

In some cases the ideology is retrofitted, so to speak. The perpetrators use these slogans or radical rhetoric to give broader meaning to their actions, and their lives.

Another common trait is that they often telegraph their intent, for example on hate blogs. Some 75 per cent of killers issue some kind of warning beforehand.
Australia at risk

Senior lecturer in National Security and International Relations at Curtin University and a former senior officer with the Australian Federal Police Dr Mark Briskey told The New Daily there were now researchers worldwide looking at the phenomenon of massacres by lone actors. There could well be mass shootings in Australia.

Part of the way to fight against the phenomenon was to decrease the appeal of both Islamic State and other terror groups, and the appeal of far right groups which had now developed a political architecture across Europe.


Orlando gunman Omar Mateen and second wife Noor Zahi Salman. Photo: Facebook

“The lone wolf attacks are going to continue so long as people can connect themselves,” he said.

He said the events were triggered by the development of a critical mass, depending on the individual’s psychosocial makeup and the political situation.

“Lone wolf actors all say this is a revenge for something that the West has done. They reach a decisive moment where they can no longer host hate blogs or participate in demonstrations or bashings. A decisive moment is reached where they must act on what they have only previously thought.”

He said the more polarised a society the more likely an incident.

And while the ideologically driven groups claim credit, the individual seeks personal glory.

“It is unfortunately a tragic and evil game changer,” Dr Briskley said

The worst lone actor shooting in history, by Anders Breivik in Norway in 2011, saw 77 people killed, many of them teenagers on a youth camp.

Australia’s worst massacre was in Port Arthur, where Martin Bryant killed 35 people in 1996. It was the fourth worst mass shooting by an individual in history, and one of the few such killings devoid of ideology.

Former PM Tony Abbott made Islamic State sound cool, The New Daily, 7 June, 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/06/07/abbott-made-islamic-state-sound-cool/

Former PM Abbott ‘made Islamic State sound cool’


Jun 7, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

12


New report blasts both sides of politics for perceived failures on national security.


The former PM should have chosen his words more carefully.


The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has condemned as “unhelpful” the description of Islamic State as a “death cult”, and blasted successive Australian governments for ad hoc decision-making on national security and defence.

The hard-hitting paper Strategic Choices for the Next Government, launched in Canberra on Tuesday, calls on politicians to stop pushing their own agendas through manipulation of public opinion on national security and to take more heed of the professionals operating in the field.

Although funded by the Defence department, ASPI maintains an independence from government and attracts some of the best brains in the national security debate. It released a similar report for the incoming Abbott government in 2013.

• How Tony Abbott made Australia more dangerous
• Book reveals Abbott and Credlin’s secrets
• Drone wars: Australia’s dirty secret

ASPI counter-terrorism expert Jacinta Carroll told The New Daily that the polarisation of Islamic State as a “death cult” and Islam as “a religion of peace” was overly-simplistic and unhelpful, partly because it made the terror group appear “cool”.

“Describing Islamic State as all things that are evil – that has unintentionally been interpreted as applying to all Muslims,” Ms Carroll said.


Australia at risk of polarising on issues of terrorism and immigration, expert warns. Photo: AAP

“It has been seen as that way by some in the Australian community.

“An oversimplification and polarisation of the issue is inaccurate as well as unhelpful.”

Former prime minister Tony Abbott used the term “death cult” many hundreds of times both in parliament and in media interviews, and continued to use the term despite strong warnings from terror messaging experts that the term was arousing rather than dampening interest amongst Muslim youth. Recent research has demonstrated that recruits are drawn as much by the lure of violence as by a sense of religious obligation or anger over political injustices.

“This is seen as cool by some of the target audience,” Ms Carroll said.

“What would be helpful is a fulsome discussion countering any notion that this cool and explaining what is happening in the Middle East.”

Ms Carroll said the incoming government, whether Labor or Liberal, would face terrorist attacks in Australia during their time in office, and terrorist attacks overseas affecting Australians and Australia’s interests. Australians will continue to feature among the perpetrators and supporters of terrorism.

“This is why it is important to establish a more nuanced debate within the media and the community rather than over-simplistic slogans such as ‘death cult’. And why it is important to develop a more comprehensive and coherent government strategy than presently exists.”
‘Trumpism invading national security’

ASPI executive director Peter Jennings was also scathing of the cabinet processes relating to national defence.


Terror threats are growing, report warns. Photo: AAP

“Rapid changes in prime ministers and ministers has the effect of wildly shifting basic policy objectives, for example from Tony Abbott’s enthusiastic support for extending the air campaign to Syria in August 2015 to the much more cautious position of Malcolm Turnbull which started to shape policy from September 2015,” Mr Jennings told The New Daily.

He said one had only to read recent works such as Niki Savva’s The Road to Ruin and Laura Tingle’s How We Forgot to Govern, or a slew of memoirs from Labor’s shell-shocked casualties of the Rudd–Gillard–Rudd era, to see how disastrously cabinet government ran off the rails.

“Blame the 24/7 media cycle. Blame battalions of staffers relentlessly texting each other. Blame tweeting internet trolls, twerking populists and ranting radio shock jocks. Blame a ‘responsive’ rather than a thoughtful Australian public service. Just don’t expect a return to the calm nostrum that good process makes good policy,” Mr Jennings said.

“At worst, the future of policy looks more like Donald Trump than John Howard. That should profoundly worry anyone who cares about the idea of government producing considered policy.”

The ASPI report warns that Australia’s security situation is deteriorating and whoever wins the election will have to grapple with a wide range of security issues. Cyber security threats are growing in pace, number and reach. As well, it warns that rapid developments in artificial intelligence, autonomous robots and direct energy weapons could well render present Defence spending plans obsolete.

John Stapleton has worked as a reporter for both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian.