I was having a chat with one of my friends on the other day...

I was having a chat with one of my friends on the other day about this NBN fiasco. He happens to be a guy with some knowledge of China’s massive city redevelopment underwent in the past decades. During the time he mentioned the so called “Sunshine policy“ adopted by the Chinese government these days in negotiation with residents involved in the region of city/town redevelopment.

Old days, local government officials used to embrace a strategy named “high pressure policy” to get the things done (get those residents out of the area) in the name of national interest. That policy to some extent had resulted in the Chinese government being under the international spot light from time to time for the violation of human rights (I remember seeing this type of reports myself on Australian mainstream newspapers).

These days, most of local governments adopt a much more human strategy, so called “Sunshine policy“ in dealing with relocation of residents as the consequence of city/town redevelopment, as the government started to acknowledge that rights of those residents affected by the redevelopment is part of the national interest too- the reason behind the redevelopment.

I think the current government of Australia has to acknowledge that Australia is a democracy country and Telstra is a private owned company (not a government agency). If the government believes certain Telstra’s assets fit well with the nation’s future blueprint of NBN and the government would like to assume the ownership of these assets. The government will have to negotiate a price with the owner of the assets – the Telstra share holders which is represented by the current Telstra board.
In the area of the protection of individuals rights (residency, ownership of private assets, etc) - something a communist government has finally come to acknowledge, everybody in this country would expect the Australian government to do better than the Chinese government –a communist one.

The current proposal released by the government is plainly wrong. You just have to imagine - one day some local government officials come to your home telling you that in order to improve the service to the local community the government is going to build a freeway over your house, if you do not leave the government will either force you to do it or the government is going to limit your family’s access to local school, hospital, supermarket …. What will be your reaction???