Stephen Conroy

Australia's government has shelved debate on controversial plans to possibly split Telstra Corp. into separate retail and wholesale network divisions until the next session of Parliament, beginning May 11, in a move that buys more time to broker a deal with Telstra over plans to build a national high-speed Internet network. The passage of the legislation was already in doubt after the minority Greens party, which holds the balance of power in Australia's upper house Senate with two independents, Wednesda

The opposition has successfully filibustered this debate and it will now resume at the next session   -Stephen Conroy

 

So Communications Minister Stephen Conroy talked a little smack a couple of days ago in the Senate about the boys from Electronic Frontiers Australia, accusing vice-chair Colin Jacobs, chairman Nic Suzor and board member Geordie Guy of being, well — liars. Jacobs, it seemed, was unsurprised: Conroy pointed out in the Senate that Joe Hockey — who last week took a swipe at the filter — had supported legislation to get refused classification content removed from Australian websites more than a decade ago  

CANBERRA -(Dow Jones)- Australia's Senate won't debate or vote on controversial government plans to possibly split the country's biggest telecommunications firm, Telstra Corp. ( TLS ), into separate retail and wholesale network divisions on Thursday, according to a Senate spokeswoman. She declined to comment on why the legislation won't be debated. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy wasn't immediately available for comment.  

Greenfields legislation introduced to Parliament. Developers should expect to pay some $2,500 on average to connect a new home with fibre for the National Broadband Network, and between $400,000 to $700,000 for backhaul connections, the Federal Government revealed today. The approximate costs were revealed as part of an explanatory memorandum into the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Fibre Deployment) Bill 2010 , introduced to Parliament today after several months of industry consultation .  

China has taken the advice of former Australian competition tsar Allan Fels that it has the right to investigate and challenge the $US116 billion ($126bn) merger between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton 's Pilbara iron ore operations. The federal government has accelerated its push for a more open system of government by introducing the first federal law protecting public servants who reveal maladministration. Page 4: The legislative axe to split Telstra in two will be put away today as the opposition succe  

Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the ABC should not be forced to scale back its operations because rival networks are unhappy with its expansion. Some commercial media companies in Australia have expressed concern that the ABC is expanding outside the reach of its charter. The BBC in the UK has recently announced that it plans to cut some of its operations, but Senator Conroy says the two public broadcasters cannot be compared.

We're not going to stand back and say because other companies haven't had the foresight that the ABC has had, that we should stop the ABC   -Stephen Conroy

 

opinion The proposed National Broadband Network prices released this week by iiNet are simply way too expensive for the promised 100Mbps speeds and will need to be reduced significantly to drive customer uptake. That's the opinion I formed after a two second glance at the company's forward pricing estimates. When you dig into the details, it only gets uglier.  

Free-to-Air BroadcastingMarket conditions and changes to technology have impacted the broadcasting industry over the past 12 months and more so than any other year in the past decade. These conditions are expected to continue to impact the industry through intense competition for viewers and advertising. While the global financial crisis has left its mark on all media, Free TV in Australia weathered the storm better than expected.  

Asian stocks rose for the third time in four days, led by finance and consumer companies, amid speculation the Bank of Japan will take more steps to ease deflation in the world's second-largest economy. Sony Financial Holdings Inc. surged 14 percent in Tokyo after saying it will boost its bond holdings to reduce risk. Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker, gained 1.4 percent.

Investors are waiting to see if the Fed will commit to an extended period of low-level rates   -Nader Naeimi