When voters elect an independent ...

The relationship building will be less complex than the mainstream media suggest - there will be no show bag of goodies, or beads and blankets, as Mr Windsor says. But there will be a commitment required from the ALP to think more about the rural and regional realities beyond the cost of a national broadband network.

In the early 1990s the Labor government did a deal with Optus for mobile services to switch from analogue to digital by 2000 because it was prepared to offer coverage to 90 per cent of the market.

The problem, pointed out by the independent MP for Calare, Peter Andren, was that 90 per cent of the market occupied only 15 per cent of the geographic area of the nation.

If the next government is serious about telecommunications in “the bush” they might consider switching back to the analogue network.