As you may or may not be aware I have been doing quite a bit of work this election campaign on determining the technology policies of the parties and candidates in this federal election. After doing quite a bit of research I have come to a decision on the way that I will be voting tomorrow.

I’ll be voting Labor.

Why? The primary reason is the National Broadband Network. Labor’s plan to build the NBN will deliver a service to Australia that will improve economic growth and reestablish Australia as a global leader in internet connectivity. It will enable the development of new internet applications that will enrich our lives. In the past improvements in internet speeds have seen an explosion of new internet applications that the new speeds have made possible. Can you imagine YouTube on dialup?

In addition the NBN will finally break the stranglehold that Telstra has on telephone exchanges and promote a level playing field for internet retailers. The recent fine levied on Telstra for anti-competitive behaviour in this area just shows how Telstra has abused its power in this area and how much that abuse is ingrained in its culture. Labor’s NBN proposal will finally fix this problem.

The coalition’s plan will leave Telstra in control of exchanges and perpetuate the mess that exists now. It will promote duplication of infrastructure in the major metropolitan areas whilst leaving outer suburban, regional and country areas without decent service and speeds. The coalition’s contention that $43 Billion is too much to pay (the actual figure will be much less due to the deal that the government did with Telstra) will pale into insignificance when the cost of providing duplicate private broadband infrastructures is taken into account. The shortsighted statements by coalition figures that Australians don’t need faster broadband speeds shows just how backward looking they are.

But what of the other issues?

I applaud the coalition’s stance on mandatory internet filtering however I think that Stephen Conroy has received the message loud and clear that what is being proposed is bad policy and I believe that the final filter proposal will be watered down. The litmus test of the policy will be whether or not sites like WikiLeaks are blocked by the filter.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) frankly scares me and I think that not enough attention has been focussed on this treaty yet. If Labor is re-elected I will be doing what I can to try and raise awareness of what this treaty means to our civil liberties.

Electronic health records are also a professional interest of mine and I think the Labor party’s support for them is a good thing although details on how they will be implemented are scarce.

In terms of preferences I will be putting the coalition as number 2 because quite frankly the choice of the paedophile, the racist, the baby killers, the disconnected incompetents and the LDP don’t inspire me.

I’ll probably vote for the coalition in the senate as they oppose the filter and are more likely to oppose ACTA.

It has certainly been an interesting campaign from a technology perspective and I will certainly be glued to the ABC tomorrow night with Twitter open on the laptop to see what happens.