*Digital TV, President Bush, And Prime Minister Gillard: *The United
States handled the transition to digital TV about as well as one could
expect. Taxpayers subsidized the purchase of converter boxes
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_converter_box> for those who
wanted to keep their analog TV sets, but did not, in most places, help
with the installation. Those who couldn't handle the simple
installation almost all had friends or relatives who could.
When it became obvious that many people had missed the almost endless
public service announcements on the transition, the government delayed
the transition and extended the time for the converter box rebate cards.
On the whole, I thought that the transition went about as well as one
could expect, in a nation as large and diverse as this one.
It is hard to know how much credit President Bush deserves for the
/relatively/ smooth transition, but we can be certain that he would have
been blamed if it had gone badly.
The current Australian experience
<http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/set-top-box-for-pensioners-rort/story-e6freuzi-1226054961603%22%22>
shows /some/ of the traps we avoided.
*COMPANIES being paid $350 a time to install set-top boxes for
pensioners are offering sub-contractors the work for as little as $84.*
Tender documents show the Government is making lavish incentive
payments for quick installations under the controversial scheme to
give all pensioners access to digital television. But
Victorian-based Skybridge, one of two companies which have so far
won the bulk of the installation work, has offered businesses in
western NSW just $84.
The company is linked to another operation set up under a similar
name in 2009 to install home insulation under the Government's
bungled pink batts scheme.
Just from that account, you can see some of the mistakes that Gillard's
Labor government is making. They are assuming that pensioners need
help and that it must come from the government. They are paying for
work that almost all Australians, pensioners or not, could do
themselves. And they are awarding government work to a company that
failed badly in earlier work. (The insulation installations sometimes
caused house fires.)
By way of Tim Blair
<http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/mates_rates/>,
who has some nasty, and very funny, things to say about the Australian
government's blunders
<http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/australias_official_hopeless_mate/>.
- 10:18 AM, 13 May 2011 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/May2011_2.html#jrm9884>
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