Broadband will abolish traffic jams and if it doesn't you can always walk and chew gum

Stephen Conroy takes the theory of 'virtual traffic' and transforms it for the digital age.

Former NSW premier Nathan Rees on October 23:

CONGESTION is a concern for all Sydneysiders and if you think you are in traffic, you are in traffic. It's not a relative concept. It's no good for me saying, "Oh, it's much worse in New York or Paris." It's like being in love. If you think you are in love, you are in love. If you think you are in traffic, you are in traffic.

Federal Communications Minister Conroy yesterday:

THE Australian's Sid Maher: What do you say to people sitting in traffic in Sydney, waiting in a hospital queue? Why is that $27 billion better spent on the [National Broadband Network]?

Conroy: Because spending money on the NBN is about spending money on hospitals, it is about spending money on education, it is about spending money on environment through people being able to work from home so they're not sitting in those traffic jams, so they're not sitting in hospital waiting lists. They'll be able to do those things from home. And we've released a study about the benefits of people being able to work from home. And they've calculated, I think, between $1.5 [bn] and $2bn, I think, which means people aren't going to be sitting in those traffic jams for longer. We're managing to walk and chew gum, we're not sitting here navel gazing.

Not before time. Alan Bird, the member for Batman, in parliament, September 27, 1960:

TRAFFIC has outgrown road capacity in weight, speed and density. Extreme congestion in city and urban areas is an everyday occurrence. In Melbourne, it is a veritable nightmare to travel through the peak traffic. The opposition has frequently advocated the expenditure of part of the money provided for defence upon the national highways that have a strategic value, but the government has remained oblivious to this need. The gigantic needs of the next decade or two have been barely estimated, let alone planned. Other countries are far ahead of us in their preparations for the future.

On the right road. Julia Gillard on June 24:

IT was necessary for me to take this step and I acknowledge that this is a difficult day, it's a very difficult day for Kevin Rudd, but it was necessary for me to take this step to take control and to ensure that the government got back on track.

Dennis Shanahan on Newspoll in The Australian yesterday:

LABOR has finished the most extraordinary year in decades below where it was when it dumped Kevin Rudd and further behind than when it lost its majority

Does the PM's left hand know what the right hand is doing? Yesterday's press conference:

JOURNALIST Alison Rehn: I've just noticed a lovely big ring on your left hand and I'm just wondering if someone engaged our Prime Minister?

Gillard: Right, we've got to that stage in a press conference where it's all got a bit silly. No, I've had that ring for a long period of time, and I miscellaneously wear it on my left hand or my right hand depending on how much handwriting I'm doing because I don't know about you, but I find if I work a long period of time writing with rings on my right hand then they start to hurt, and so then I slip it on to my left hand. If it'll make you feel better I'll slip it back on to the right hand.

Federal Labor frontbencher Warren Snowdon on the asylum-seeker boat disaster at Christmas Island last week:

WE would not have ever anticipated that some idiot would have put people on a wooden vessel in the cyclone season and tried to bring them to Christmas Island. That is just the grossest, most irresponsible behaviour I could ever imagine. It is criminal behaviour of the worst possible type.

Tim Blair in The Daily Telegraph yesterday:

WHO could ever have guessed that the scum of the earth would be irresponsible? Come on, criminal scum. Play nice.

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