So much funny money has been thrown around that the Labor government appears to think it can just shrug off the extraordinary $31.5 billion regulatory write-down of the national broadband network, the nation-building government wholesale monopoly sketched out on a paper napkin in 2009 by then-communications minister Stephen Conroy on a prime ministerial flight with Kevin Rudd.

It’s good that Australia has a workable broadband network, as highlighted when the NBN helped with the mass shift to working from home during the pandemic. But the massive regulatory write-down vindicates the concerns expressed by The Australian Financial Review a decade ago that Mr Conroy dismissed as akin to believing the world was flat.