Australian IT Minister Alston Replaced

srouvray writes "The Australian is reporting: In a re-shuffle of the Australian Federal Cabinet, current Communications Minister Richard Alston will be replaced (Alston is going to retire) with Attorney General Darryl Williams. Alston is 'credited' for introducing tough anti-spam laws into parliament... Although it will be interesting to see if Williams will be branded a 'Luddite' as well!"

hallelujah

Let's not forget that this is the minister who said that broadband was only for games and porn.

I for one welcome his replacement.

Actually

It sounds to me like he's got his finger on the pulse of the geek community (or at least the /. community).

I, for one, give him +1 insightful.

Wishlist

* Stop the Telstra Bulldozer in it's tracks -- support broadband. Canada proves it's possible in a big country
* Sensible censorship
* Sensible copyright
* Serious commitment to anti-spam
* Keep investing and committing to open source

Alston's policies have left Australia as an international IT joke. So much local telent, and so many opportunities in the Asian and global markets have gone to waste. More importantly, every Australian business and consumer has suffered from the 1950s attitudes of the present Aussie govt. Step into the 80s guys, the economy is not all agriculture and textiles!

Aussies don't need spam...

their penises are already big enough (or so I'm told)

Notable Achievements of Alston's

• Initially dismissing broadband as a gaming platform [slashdot.org]
• Calling a country-wide broadband rollout a "costly waste of time" [theregister.co.uk]
• Decreeing that consumers should be kept in the dark [slashdot.org] about their phone line
• Linking the takeup of broadband to pornography [slashdot.org]
• Allowing his department to spend $4,000,000 [slashdot.org] on a small and poorly developed website

Re:Notable Achievements of Alston's

You may want to fix up your links so that they refer to Whirlpool.net.au rather than the non-existant coldfusion pages on Slashdot.

Decreeing that consumers should be kept in the dark about their phone line = http://www.whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=765

Allowing his department to spend $4,000,000 on a small and poorly developed website = http://www.whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=1107

Linking the takeup of broadband to pornography =
http://www.whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=956

Initially dismissing broadband as a gaming platform = http://www.whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=566

Hoo-fucking-ray

At last, the cretin has gone. And despite the media claiming he left of his own accord, everyone in politics knows that he was pushed, due to his own ineptitude.

Of course, Williams is just as much of a wanker, and probably won't fix anything.

I am an OTA (Other-Than-Australian)..

.. you insensitive clod!

Be thankful

After all, the job could of been given to Amanda Vanstone ;)

Do the Disaster Shuffle baby!

Alston was a communications disaster, presiding over failed Telstra rollouts/privatizations, 3G rollouts, HDTV rollouts; if it rolled, he screwed it up.

OTOH, Williams has possibly been the worst Attorney-General in living memory, and he's being replaced by the most embarrassing Immigration Minister of all time so he can replace Alston! This I gotta see.

Yup, it's the good ol' Disaster Shuffle. Take yer partners for a foot-stomping good time :)

You Beauty!

I literally cheered when I read the /. headline. Alston is a drongo and we're happy to see the back of him.

First naming as "World's Biggest Luddite"

I just submitted this most excellent news item to /., but spent so much time digging up links to his inglorious past that someone beat me to it.

However, I found the original Register article that named Alston as "The World's Biggest Luddite" [theregister.co.uk].

Slashdotted twice in a week

As mentioned in the article, it was only a few days ago that he was reported here [slashdot.org] as being a "pin-up" boy for anti-spam. Perhaps this was a final good deed to make up for his many earlier sins? Or was it so that the new luddite-in-chief wasn't instantly lynched?

An appropriate tribute...

I hereby propose a new award be named in honor of the retiring Alston - "The Richard Alston Trophy for the most boneheaded government IT policy decision". Any suggestions for the trophy design?

Communications AND the arts

Don't forget about the arts. Alston was more than a luddite.. he was also a cultural retard.

As an Australian, I am thoroughly embarrased. I'm sure Americans and Britons who don't agree with their elected leaders and associated parties can sympathise.

A chance for change?

While I am glad to see he has finally gone I'm not sure what real effect it will have. Alston was by far the worst ever Alston communications minister Australia has ever had but his party did not seem to care. As long as they can sell Telstra off they will remain happy. Assuming that the lib's do lose the next election it would take the new government some years to fix the damage caused by Alston.

Dear Mr. Alston...

Dear Mr. Alston,

I head up a medium sized Web Development company that specialises in Govermental website makeovers.

Attached, please find quotation for website that includes :-

* 45 Graphics
* 73 Scans
* A search function
* 144 html pages
* 666 animated gifs
* Hyperlinks
* A site map
* Lots of Pornography & Games to make use of that Broadband we all love !

I hope you'll agree that the $1,000,000 development costs are very reasonable for such advanced technology.

We can also offer you a RedHat Linux server at a paltry $500,000

Your sincerly,

Mr. Alstons Back Pocket.

Not a good thing.

Oh dear. This is bad news.

The worst thing you could say about Richard Alston is that he is an incompetent luddite.

Darryl Williams is much worse. He is cunning and intelligent, but with some truly awful political views.

He is well-known for:

trying to destroy [onlineopinion.com.au] the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Being the force behind Australia's equivalent of the Patriot Act [theage.com.au]

Refusing to defend a homosexual judge [smh.com.au], despite being bound by his position as Attorney General to act as an advocate and protector for the judiciary

Refusing [bbc.co.uk] to accept UN reports on racism in Australia

Lobbying for increased intellectual property rights [murdoch.edu.au]

Lobbying [zdnet.com.au] for laws allowing Australia's spy agency, ASIO, to read domestic emails

Supporting the increase [news.com.au] in the rate of phone tapping

And generally trampling on human rights and civil liberties wherever possible.

This is definately not good news.

Re:Not a good thing.

Being the force behind Australia's equivalent of the Patriot Act

The ASIO bill was much worse than the Patriot Act. Among other things it
1. Removed habeus corpus from common law.
2. Made refusal to give testimony a crime (5 years)
3. Denial of legal counsel
4. Denial of ANY counsel (incommunicado)
5. Strip search without justification
6. Only avenue of complaint via letter, which you have to give to your interrogators, who will pass it on to the ombudsman (without 'misplacing' it, yeah right ...)

The press goes on about Guantanomo bay, but at least the Americans had to invent a term 'illegal combatant', and it is still being challenged. With the ASIO bill, we signed 'Guantanomo Bay' into law!

Now the Govt. can pick you up off the street hold you incommunicado, without counsel, without any rights under common law, and then imprison you for 5 years even if you don't know anything.

And now we want this nazi motherfucker to be overlording our communications as well, reading our e-mails and listening to our phone calls.Sheesh .... we are so fucked.

First dibs on the website redesign

I'm sure the new guy will need his website redesigned. I am going to offer to do it for 50% of what it cost Alston. At $2 million that is a bargain.

--

0x00

Ding dong the witch is dead?

I've currently got enough gear to start a wireless broadband ISP sitting here in my house in Melbourne. I've got two high spots with access points that are installed and ready to go as well as a 10mb uplink.

I don't have a telecommunications license.
Thats going to require setting up the right type of company and then paying the 1st $10,000 application fee. Rumors from someone thats just started the 1st years paper work is saying its going to cost $50,000 just to get to the second year.

Damn cuting into Ziggys gravy train is a hard game to play.

Lucky for me I can ship all this gear over the Tasman sea where the political situation is so messed up.

Thank you John Howard

Finally this pratt is no longer in a position to do any more damage to his portfolio. IMHO he has done more to damage telecoms and tech in Australia than any other communications minister in recent history. Good riddance Richard. Get rid of Tony Abbott while you are at it, John.

WELOVETHEAUSTRALIANITMINISTER.COM

"I tell you now, there is no Linux in Australia! Let them come! We will wash our hands in the blood of the infidel."

I had to do it...

What story? (That 'rejected' feeling!!)

I sent in this story a lot earlier than this version, and mine was "rejected". We are told not to get upset when stories are "rejected" but there seems to be an issue here, CmdrTaco! Editorial policy should be consistent! (Okay, I'm not really upset, really, really I'm not... :-)

OT: Why no Flag

I notice that when a story relating to the US (eg a new policy or achievement ) is posted here, it is accompanied by the US flag. Why no Aussie flag? Couldn't find the graphic?

Oh God!

Attorney General Darryl...

As I was reading this I thought the next word would be McBride, and I almost fainted. Imagine that man in any sort of political office? "Uh, guys, I got this great plan. Instead of trying to hunt down Saddam, why don't we just sue him unless he pays us $6,999,999.00 for every weapon of mass destruction he has? Yes!!! Brilliant!!!"

hey!

What is this!? I submitted this story 24 hours ago and it was rejected and now someone else posts it and it's put up?! What my post wasn't good enough was it?!

btw as I wrote in my post, Daryl Williams isn't exactly the best guy for the job, he wasn't a very good A-G and I don't think he knows anything about Communications and IT.

What the...

Senator Eggleston described Senator Alston as the

greatest communications minister Australia had ever had, saying that during his term as communications minister the nation had seen great improvement in telecommunications services, particularly in rural Australia.

WTF?

You troll

This is absolute hogwash! Gun crime has never really been much of a problem here in Aus. I have only ever heard of two gun murders in my entire life. I seriously doubt this guy has ever even been to Australia.

Re:Next step for the Australians...

Not sure where you heard this rubbish. Australia feels and is a lot safer now than before this ban - the kind of fear that Americans live under is unheard of in Australia.

Re:Next step for the Australians...

Yes, and please don't export your gun-grabbiness to the States. We do have it, but we really don't want it - only our politicians do so they can "fight crime" without going after the reasons crime exists.