ZDNet Australia is proud to bring you a serialised version of Phil Dobbie's novel The Incumbent. A new chapter will be published here as part of his blog each week on Tuesday. You can also buy the entire book by clicking here.

Adam Willis often found his mind playing tricks on him. It was probably something to do with getting just a couple of hours' sleep each night, even though he argued that was all he needed. Certainly, an extra five hours might give him the capability of reasoned thought, which would hinder his performance at Radio 2IQ, so he was careful to ration his time in the bedroom.

There was the unfortunate side effect that sleep deprivation could make you see things. Willis knew that's why he kept imagining monkeys and aliens, not to mention the angry mobs protesting outside his studio - he told himself none of these things existed, but he still kept seeing them. So when, each night, a car pulled out from a side street as he headed home, he was never really sure whether it was there or not. Night after night, the same car would follow him, yet, by the time he reached his house, it had disappeared. He explained the visions to a producer at work, who said perhaps it was real (and told him the same went for the angry mob he kept seeing).

'Do you suppose whoever it is means me harm?' he asked. 'Why would someone want to do that?'

The producer didn't answer straight away, but the next day he had compiled an exhaustive list of 749 individuals and 348 interest groups who would like to see Willis dead. And they were the one's he'd been able to get through to on the phone. Another colleague had, unhelpfully, pointed out that kill-willis.com was now the third-highest-rating website in the country. Willis paid it a visit, and wondered whether it was appropriate for the Labor Party to be advertising on it.

The producer compiled an exhaustive list of 749 individuals and 348 interest groups who would like to see Willis dead...

So, he was relieved that on the night after the great VastTel debate, there was no sign of the mysterious car, and the roads had been virtually empty all the way home. But he failed to notice the fresh tyre tracks on the gravel driveway as his Bentley pulled up outside his harbour-side mansion. He also missed the faint smell of burning wood, and the wisps of smoke from the chimney. The idea that someone was in his home was far from his mind; a mind that was too busy contemplating what he would rant about the next morning.

There were a few favourite topics he liked to cover: how there are too many migrants; how migrants are taking our jobs; how to stop migrants; how migrants should be sent home; how migrants aren't to be trusted; how migrants are dole bludgers; how migrants are terrorists; how migrants spread disease; and so on. He tossed some more ideas over in his mind, before deciding that the next morning, his editorial would almost certainly be about migrants. Perhaps something on how ugly they are. He thought that he could argue that so many of them wear a burqa because they're ashamed of their physical appearance. It might upset a few people, but he knew how his audience hated Muslims, so he could use that age-old excuse that he was reflecting community opinion.

Willis had been so lost in his thoughts that he only realised he had company when he opened the front door, walked a few steps up the hallway and turned into his living room. The fire was raging, and a group of men in suits were gathered around the hearth, each having helped themselves to a glass of his finest 40-year-old malt whisky.

'Who the hell are you?' he yelled out, wondering where his 19-year-old Thai housekeeper was. 'And where's Anurak? What have you done with him?'

'He's tied up in your bedroom ... the ropes were already there, and he seemed rather familiar with the process.'

'He's tied up in your bedroom,' said a voice from the armchair. 'Rather convenient, the ropes were already there, and he seemed rather familiar with the process.'

Willis couldn't see who was speaking; the chair was facing away from him, but the voice was vaguely familiar. It was some B-grade celebrity, he thought, but he couldn't quite put a name to him. Or was it that moron who followed on from him at 9 o'clock each morning? He walked up to the fireplace to turn and face him.

'I should imagine you are surprised to see me here?' the man said, looking up at Willis.

'Yes,' said the shock jock, desperately trying to put a name to the face. 'I've seen you on television haven't I?'

'Not often,' said the man. 'But more than my boss. I think you might have met him.'

Suddenly Willis remembered.

'Holton-Lacey, isn't it?'

'Well done,' said the intruder. He clapped his hands lightly a few times.

'And you work for ...' Willis couldn't remember the name, '... er … the prime minister ...'

'Duff is his name,' said the finance minister. 'Alvin Duff; easily forgotten.'

'So, what can I do for you?' asked Willis.

'I have been listening to you, Adam Willis,' said Holton-Lacey. He gave a nod to the men gathered around the fireplace, who read the signal to retire to another room, which they did, taking a fresh bottle of whisky with them.

'I like a lot of what you say. It makes my job a lot easier, telling people what to think. The last thing we want is free thought.'

Willis agreed, although it somehow didn't sound right coming from a Cabinet minister. Even though he mistrusted politicians enormously, he had wrongly assumed that their interests were limited to nothing more than staying in power and earning a salary they couldn't hope to achieve in the real world. He hadn't entertained the notion that their ambitions would spread any further than that. He was getting worried that here appeared to be a man who wanted to extend his influence much further.

He had assumed that politicians' interests were limited to staying in power and earning a salary they couldn't hope to achieve in the real world.

'VastTel,' Holton-Lacey said, looking Willis firmly in the eye. 'I want you to go easy on them.'

'Really?' said Willis. 'But they are incompetent, overpaid, bureaucratic time wasters.'

'That's true. And that's the point. Everyone there would be completely unemployable anywhere else.'

'So why would you want to protect them?' Willis was curious.

'Think about it, Mr Willis. What would you do with all those people?'

Willis hated being asked questions. He particularly disliked being asked to come up with answers to society's problems. He was much better at creating them. But he could see Holton-Lacey's point. What do you do with all of those inept people?

'How do you think we keep the unemployment levels so low?' asked Holton-Lacey, surprised that Willis had not figured this out before now. He went on to explain the government scheme, and how it all needed to be kept from the public. If they started to question the recruitment policies at the telecommunications company, the resulting expose could destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs; sufficient to cripple the economy, and bring down the government.

'So why are you telling me this? What if I just go and let my audience know exactly what's going on?'

'You don't want to mess with me,' said Holton-Lacey. 'Or I'll chop your balls off.' He clicked his fingers and one of the men in suits returned to the room, holding a silver plate, which he presented to Willis. 'Here's one we did earlier,' he said.

Willis looked at the article on the plate. It looked familiar. He felt through his trousers in case one had been taken from him in his sleep. No; they were both still there.

He ran to his bedroom, where the mono-testicled Thai lay, trying desperately to cross his legs.

'You don't scare me,' said Willis, lying.

'Well, I should,' said Holton-Lacey, rising from his chair, flanked by the men in suits, one of whom placed the empty whisky bottle into Willis' hands.

The finance minister turned to him before making his final exit. 'Have a nibble. I'm sure you'll recognise the taste.'

'What?' said Willis, who gave it a lick, without hesitation.

'Anurak!' he screamed. There was a groan from upstairs, where his housekeeper was starting to wake up, clearly in agony. 'You bastards!' He ran to his bedroom, where the mono-testicled Thai lay, trying desperately to cross his legs.

Willis realised he had met his match. Perhaps he was no longer the most powerful man in the country. This Holton-Lacey character seemed to be the new player in town. All of a sudden, there was the stark realisation that from now on, he was answerable to the government, which seemed capable of all sorts of wrongdoing. In a way, he admired their work. It was preferable to the inept bungling bureaucracy he had assumed them to be, but it made him nervous. He wondered how involved the prime minister was in all of this, whatever his name was.

His young Thai housekeeper was even more certain that Holton-Lacey was a force to be reckoned with, destined as he now was to a lifetime of ill-fitting underpants.

The Incumbent is Phil Dobbie's first novel and these excerpts have been used with his permission. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. To purchase the entire novel in digital format, click here. It is also available in printed format ... for more details click here.

We no longer talk about "information assurance", but rather "defensive cyber operations".

At last week's AusCERT 2012 information security conference, there was still plenty of discussion about online crime. Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, outlined a complex transnational criminal operation that saw goods bought fraudulently in Denmark being resold in Moscow. But Kaspersky Lab CEO Eugene Kaspersky reckons that cybercrime's golden age will end in 2014, and the consensus seems to be that we've at least got a handle on cybercrime, and know our next steps.

In this week's Patch Monday podcast, the first of two episodes covering AusCERT 2012, we hear the cyberwar-related highlights.

It's clear that nations including the US, the UK, China and France are already building and stockpiling offensive cyberweapons. Hypponen explains how we can judge the scale of American cyberweapon development by simply looking at recruitment advertising.

US Department of Defense (DoD) lawyer Richard Clarke explains cyberwar from a legal viewpoint, and tells us why he thinks the sudden-strike "cyber Pearl Harbour" or "cybergeddon" won't happen.

AusCERT general manager Graham Ingram reflects on the appeal that cyberweapons hold when compared with traditional kinetic weapons, and what it'll mean for information security to become militarised.

To leave an audio comment on the program, Skype to stilgherrian, or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

Running time: 52 minutes, 16 seconds

Thanks to Risky Business for some of the audio recordings.

On this week's Piccolo-sized Technolatte:

• Facebook launches its IPO

• What's happening at AusCERT 2012

• How many Raspberry Pi computers are there in Australia?

Subscribe to Technolatte on iTunes.

Running time: 14 minutes, 21 seconds

We've heard the stories of the government employees in Victoria who were receiving gift cards for buying printer toner that departments didn't need. We've heard the stories of the Sydney University IT manager who allegedly hired a company for IT work in which he and his wife held an interest. We've heard the rumblings about government agencies doing too much procurement outside of the tender process, with one example being a contract awarded by Synergy, which was picked up in an audit.

This week, Australian icon Woolworths has been forced onto the dodgy IT-procurement bandwagon, with a case on the matter being heard in the District Court.

It's alleged that a former general manager of information systems at Woolworths, David Wills, used his position to influence the awarding of contracts, netting himself $3.75 million. Crown prosecutor Sunil de Silva outlined one example, saying that on Wills' insistence, Woolworths had awarded a $20 million contract to Azben Technology.

Wills "used his position to influence the awarding of these contracts in a way that would prejudice the interests of Woolworths", De Silva said.

"If a company was awarding tenders without following procedures for tenders, it loses credibility in the financial market."

De Silva is exactly right. That company does. After all, if you're not managing your spending, then how is the business going to do well? And what about the service that the company was trying to obtain? Will it actually be delivered?

The trouble is, people often hate the procedures that are put in place to stop similar fraud from occurring. They make it difficult to buy anything, and cause problems if time is an issue with the purchase. We know the pain of a company slogging its way through a government tender process. On the other side of the fence, it's likely just as tedious for IT managers, who are waiting for the program that the business so desperately needs to get on track.

Given these issues, people will inevitably be tempted to try to cut corners. This helps those who really are intending to rort the system.

So, how do we make sure that procurement is kept honest, while not overburdening the IT department?

Perhaps big data has the answer. If we pull together data from inside and outside an organisation about individuals who work in procurement process and their procurements, it could be possible to follow the breadcrumbs to the realisation that something is wrong.

Remember the case of the former EDS employee who stole $3 million from the Bank of Queensland? His spending on wine and cars sparked the investigation that led to him being sentenced to jail. This sort of spending could probably have been picked up sooner, with data sucked from the social media sphere.

In the realm of procurement, a query might find a link between a person and a company's services that are being procured.

After all, wouldn't you brag on Twitter or Facebook if you bought a luxury car?

How do you keep an eye on procurement in your organisation?

AAP contributed to this article.

Not only is that business reader likely a consumer of ICT, but they will also often be a shareholder in it. Given the fact that they probably own shares in the ICT businesses reported on, what happens to the share price also matters. And if regulators do something to affect this, you quickly realise that there are two sides to every story.

On one hand, regulators are consumer champions, protecting the masses from being exploited by greedy, fat-cat capitalists.

On the other hand, regulatory intervention destroys shareholder value, and damages companies, especially if businesses and entrepreneurs feel that they cannot make much of a buck anymore.

Thus, a recent New Zealand Commerce Commission (ComCom) recommendation that the government should force Telecom offshoot Chorus to slash its charges for copper access is big news from several angles.

First, it will affect demand for copper wire broadband access, and may even undermine the business case for fibre, and the government's own Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative.

But also of concern now is the impact on share prices and the wider public investment in the markets.

The proposed intervention spooked the markets, especially with Chorus being a recently created spin-off from Telecom, driven by government. Since the government effectively created Chorus, it should be happy with it, but the fact that it apparently isn't came as a shock.

Financial experts warned that such regulatory uncertainty is economically damaging, and some blog writers were particularly angry about it.

But such criticism will not stop ComCom, which this week also announced an inquiry into Sky TV, something that also hit Sky's share price.

It may be that Sky is dominant, and does not always do what's best for the consumer, but consumer lobby groups need to look at the other impacts from regulatory intervention than merely the end effect for consumers.

They also need to consider the views of those economists who argue that monopoly profits attract entrants to a market and drive innovation.

Governments need to respect the property rights of shareholders, especially when larger companies like Chorus will have many shareholders.

When the last Labour government unbundled the local loop, the value of Telecom dropped by between $2 billion and $3 billion, hitting the savings and pensions of millions of ordinary "mum and dad" investors.

To paraphrase Maude Flanders on The Simpsons: "Won't somebody please think of the shareholders!"

It would be hard to say that the NBN will do any harm. The contentious issues tend to revolve around whether it will achieve the same - or more - in a better way.

This week on Twisted Wire, we summarise some of the arguments you have heard over the last few years into a half-hour catch-up on the major areas of debate.

On the positive side, the five pros are:

1. It will boost productivity
2. It will provide the latest technology, at a low cost, to all Australians
3. It gives us a competitive advantage against other, less-connected, nations
4. It removes the stranglehold that Telstra has on access provision
5. It's a game changer that will change many things we might not have envisioned.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? So, what's the downside? Have a listen to the podcast to hear the views of the naysayers.

Add your views on the Twisted Wire feedback line: 02 9304 5198

Running time: 26 minutes, 59 seconds

The seeds for the deal were sown almost a decade ago, when CEO Steve Telburn worked with voice over internet protocol (VoIP) start-up Zellor Software, which secured funding from Starfish Ventures.

Zellor didn't pan out as expected - the idea was ahead of its time, Telburn said - but it led him to a fruitful consulting career, and, more importantly, to reconnect with an old friend and colleague, Santosh Kulkarni.

Kulkarni was leading a National ICT Australia (NICTA) research project to commercialise peer-to-peer technology, and in 2010 he teamed up with Telburn to co-found Scalify, after they identified an opportunity in the burgeoning gaming market.

Last year, the pair sought funding to spin out the four-year project from NICTA, a deal that would see the research organisation take an equity stake in Scalify, and Telburn's first call was to his old friends at Starfish. This led to the $2 million to fund the company's growth.

The Scalify technology ("Badumna") is touted as a way for massively multiplayer online (MMO) game publishers to remove capacity constraints by using the end-user network (game players) to perform key computing and processing functions, instead of the traditional client-server model.

Publisher server costs can be reduced by up to three quarters, Telburn said, but the real potential is changing the way that games are designed and played.

The increasingly popular social-gaming segment isn't actually social, because individuals play in isolation or one on one. Scalify's technology, however, can be used to develop games where thousands of people around the world can interact in the virtual universe, something that has been difficult until now.

"If you're trying to support thousands of people concurrently in a virtual environment, and every time somebody moves or changes the environment, such as opens a door or turns a light switch on, that has to go up to servers and back to anyone that needs to see that information or cares about it, it's a pretty horrific load. And it needs to happen in real time.

"What we can do is send that directly [peer to peer], which means the performance improves and means [the games] can scale a lot more quickly. It also means you can design new types of games; you don't need to design your games, mindful of constraints."

The company is targeting [MMO] publishers, in the hopes of reducing their costs and overcoming design limitations, such as the practice of "sharding", where virtual worlds are split, based on server capacity in a particular geography.

Telburn expects that at least one deal will be signed this year, using a subscription model, which charges publishers based on the number of game players.

SWOT analysis

Strengths

The company raised $2 million in funding from Starfish. It's a NICTA-developed technology, and has a targeted business model.

Weaknesses

The company's fortunes are ultimately tied to the ability of the game publishers to extract the most from the technology. There is some customer education required.

Opportunities

The reach of Facebook and the iPhone has created the potential for a new class of social games that can be played on a massive scale.

Threats

Scalify is in a race to develop the first truly social, massive MMO game, but it could be beaten to the punch by another company with a similar technology.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that Scalify will be a commercial success via the anticipated deals with big game publishers.

However, the real question is whether it can be the catalyst for a new type of gaming experience, the truly massive, social game. In order for Scalify to scale, the technology needs to be used to build the next Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja. This will allow it to monopolise the all-important game-developer community.

In this regard, it has quite a task ahead of it; and, at this very early stage, it's impossible to believe that it can achieve this.

Verdict: BUST

And Turnbull would, in his capacity as Tony "I'm-no-Bill-Gates" Abbott's right-hand man on all things technology and communications related, sit his boss down and explain in careful, short words, what the NBN is actually all about.

Are Abbott's Liberals ignoring NBN facts - or trying to rewrite them? (Screenshot by David Braue/ZDNet Australia)

Turnbull would explain, how, you know: the industry is pushing for structural separation; why a fibre-to-the-node (FttN) policy will put - and keep - Abbott on his knees, before an historically recalcitrant Telstra; and the reality that NBN pricing has shown absolutely no threat of exploding in the real world, in the way it apparently explodes, over and over again, inside Abbott's head.

Clear and concise conversations like that have a way of helping people reset their bearings, brush off the cobwebs of old and outdated positions, filter out festering inaccuracies, and generally improve the perceived legitimacy of their arguments (don't forget late last year, when Turnbull apparently met with NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley, for a tête-à-tête discussion, and now, has spent this year in more practically minded public discourse).

Such absent conversations and tired fallacies have a way of sounding even more tired and inaccurate than ever. And it was for this reason, I suspect, that after reading Abbott's budget response last week, much of Australia's entire technology journalism community either moaned and popped a pair of Panadeine, or simply took the rest of the day off and went outside to engage in something more rewarding - for example, repeatedly hitting their heads with a large brick.

Abbott has shown prodigious skill in cramming masses of hysterical, prejudicial, dogmatic and entirely inaccurate FUD, into one or two sentences.

Whatever his other talents, when it comes to the NBN, Abbott has shown prodigious skill in cramming masses of hysterical, prejudicial, dogmatic and entirely inaccurate fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) into one or two sentences. His budget reply speech (watch it or read it) proved that despite millions of published words and thousands of carefully reasoned arguments, over several years, Abbott - and, by association, the entire Liberal Party - is still not above ignoring the facts in an attempt to make a good political point.

There were all the old nuggets, wrapped into just a couple of sentences: "Why spend $50 billion on a National Broadband Network, so customers can subsequently spend almost three times their current monthly fee, for speeds they might not need? Why dig up every street, when fibre to the node could, more swiftly and more affordably, deliver 21st-century broadband?"

Pick your FUD: the $50 billion price tag, to which Abbott clings to; the blatantly incorrect statement about the cost of NBN plans; his assumptions about whether or not people need NBN speeds; or the elephant in the room - Abbott's insinuation that Labor's NBN will involve digging up "every street".

Really?

Surely, at some point, Turnbull must have pointed out to Abbott that the reason the NBN has been delayed, in the first place, was that it was waiting to conclude its negotiations with Telstra, precisely so it would not have to dig up every street.

Surely, someone would have mentioned to Abbott that so far, the prices for NBN services are actually quite comparable with those of current ADSL and cable services.

Surely, someone would have told him that there are, actually, quite a lot of people who would welcome the speeds of the NBN, or even its lowest speed of 12Mbps, if they could only be guaranteed to get what they're paying for.

And surely, someone would have sat down for a heart-to-heart with Abbott about why the Telstra privatisation failed to deliver the kind of market that everybody in the industry has hoped for, over last 15 years.

None of this is new, and it's not the first time I have pointed it out (see my thoughts in July 2010). But you'd think that if the Coalition were interested in fighting fire with fire, Turnbull would surely have set Abbott straight on these, and other, issues, so he could impress upon the media and the public the effectiveness of his intelligent, well-informed arguments against Labor's NBN.

We must also consider the possibility that Turnbull is saying nothing because he enjoys watching Abbott twisting in the wind; and who could blame him?

Seriously, though, I think we've all accepted that Abbott's not technically minded. But, surely, Abbott must have realised by now that the NBN is an important-enough election issue that he should be ready to engage in fact-filled debates, come next year. And surely, as a Rhodes scholar and would-be prime minister, he could take the time to do enough footwork to get some genuine facts about the roll-out, before throwing FUD around, left, right and centre, like an inebriated chef de partie throwing fettuccine against the wall to see if it's ready.

If Abbott cannot get his facts straight ... what does this say about his potential performance as PM?

No matter how much you marginalise the NBN as an issue of national importance - and there certainly are other critical issues facing our country - his ongoing refusal to bow to the weight of actual facts is a worrying sign of a broader political style that favours flash over sizzle, style over substance and political FUD over fact. If Abbott cannot, or will not, get his facts straight on the NBN, despite a wealth of information that would allow him to do so, what does this say about his potential performance as PM?

However, Abbott is not the only one trying to write his own version of the NBN truth. Paul Fletcher, Turnbull's heir apparent, appears to have been practicing his Jonathan Holmes swagger in front of the mirror, and started trying to school the media on how to properly cover the NBN.

Note to self: it is apparently not possible to write fairly about the NBN, without arguing that it is a steaming, stinking policy, and lacing one's coverage with judicious use of terms like "pink batts" and "white elephant". Fletcher's stream of invective against the straightforward, if non-acerbic, NBN report in The Sydney Morning Herald(not available online) and his bizarre decision to complain to the Australian Press Council (APC) about it, smacks of tit for tat, just months after the APC slapped rival paper The Daily Telegraph on the wrist for its inaccurate NBN coverage.

Most of the reasons for that finding relate to misleading statements about the NBN's price. Does this mean someone should, therefore, censure Abbott for his misleading statements in parliament? Or maybe they should just refer him to the government's new online portal for NBN education. Turnbull's press release, in response to the Budget, attacked the portal's $20 million cost as a tool for "more pro-NBN propaganda" - and yet, ironically, Turnbull's ongoing ignorance of NBN facts suggests that he might rightfully be one of its biggest users.

They say that it's not fair to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man, but when that man is jockeying for the most important political position in the country, it's hard to avoid. Over and over again, Tony Abbott has done with his NBN facts what Dan Quayle did with the English language. Given the near-universal condemnation of his budget reply, one would hope that Abbott will take a few minutes to sit down with Turnbull, and get some actual facts about the NBN. It would make the debate so much more interesting - and maybe, just maybe, force him to fight the election on issues where the truth really is as outrageous as he wants to believe.

What do you think? Do the facts particularly matter in this debate? Is there a reason Turnbull might not be schooling Abbott on the NBN? Or do you think Abbott, in fact, does have his facts straight?

It was the turn of the century, the tech boom was on and candidates only had to have so many skills for the jobs available; a decent, but not complete, match. Employers were easygoing, and seemed keen to score.

I thought of this when I wrote about New Zealand's ICT skills shortages last week.

Two weeks ago, it was reported that Weta Digital needs to import 369 highly skilled individuals to help make various movies - something later confirmed to me by our Department of Labour. It seems, given this and other similar cases, that despite a slow economic recovery, skills shortages are widespread across the ICT sector.

Or are they? Maybe New Zealand employers are just being too picky. Recruitment agencies told me that not only are employers seeking a perfect fit, but this also extends down to candidates being required to have experience on the "right version of the right software".

New staffers are expected to "hit the ground running" straight away.

Employers are "too lean" to train, so applicants must be totally qualified and experienced at the right level. They can't be underqualified - but they equally can't be overqualified, as employers then fear that they might have to pay more.

Talk about playing hard to get!

It gets even worse. While companies seek immigrants, claiming that locals don't have the skills because our schools and colleges are churning out "the wrong sort", they don't seem to be making use of the immigrants that are already here.

A mate of mine, a software engineer, is aged 30 from Kazakhstan, and speaks four languages, including very good English. He has three degrees, with his masters degree in IT attained at a UK university.

Surely, he is the sort of guy that New Zealand is crying out for, especially since he has New Zealand residency and Kiwi work experience gained from one of the big banks in Wellington.

However, despite applying for more than 70 jobs, registering with 30 agencies and personally calling in to at least 12 of them, after more than a month, my mate still hasn't got a job.

Agencies tell me that firms see "cultural fit" as increasingly important.

Yes, it helps if staffers can get on with teams, but my mate tells me that at the interview, his employers even ask him if he follows rugby. As he explains, he's from Kazakhstan, and they don't play rugby there!

It really does make you wonder how stupid New Zealand employers are when they persistently turn down people who seem so able.

When I first started out in journalism, I had to write about golden weddings for the local evening paper. I would ask old couples for the secret behind having a 50-year marriage.

"Give and take" was the typical, cliched reply.

This looks like good advice for New Zealand's tech employers to follow.

If they remain too picky, rather than enjoying successful relationships with their staff, they will end up "on the shelf", as talented employees decide to try their luck elsewhere.

My mate and others like him will head offshore. He says he now fancies Australia.

A robotics student at Pennsylvania State University in the US has built a turret that talks, tracks movement with a laser-guided system and fires foam bullets at its target.

The turret sees the world via a webcam, controlled via a script written in MATLAB. Most importantly, it sings out all of the adorable phrases we've come to enjoy hearing while we're being shot at in a test chamber.

Now that the technology is working, the student is building a shell to make it look more like the Portal turret.

This isn't the only real-life Portal kit we've seen. Last year, we were delighted to see that Atlassian built its own Portal-style videoconferencing system to connect its offices.

Watch the video to see a naked turret shoot a man in a pink shirt.

ZDNet Australia is proud to bring you a serialised version of Phil Dobbie's novel The Incumbent. A new chapter will be published here as part of his blog each week on Tuesday. You can also buy the entire book by clicking here.

After the radio show, Musson was taken away in an ambulance. Willis asked his listeners what he should do with a man who had pulled out a gun with intent to use it. The audience was split between capital punishment and castration, their standard response to most crimes. It provided for a lively debate in the last half of his program, during which Musson was smuggled out the back of the building for his own safety. From there, the ambulance hurried him back to the relative peace of Double Bay.

As his psychiatrist, Whimplestein should probably have gone with him, but he'd had enough of psychopaths for one day. Instead, he left the 2IQ building with Woodburner and Jimi Jones. They shared a cab back to the VastTel headquarters. Woodburner was particularly keen to talk to Jones; the explosion had left a gaping hole in the organisation, as well as in the south-facing wall of the building. The CEO position needed to be filled as quickly as possible, and, as far as Woodburner was concerned, Jones was the only person who had shown any initiative, ever, even if he wasn't quite sure what it was he did.

'Look, I want you to take on the top job,' he said, 'at least as a stand-in whilst Buffet recovers.'

Young Jimi Jones was, of course, astonished. After all, he was only 21. People had worked in the organisation for 50 years and still only made it one or two rungs up the corporate ladder. All of a sudden, he was being catapulted to the top of the 15-tier management structure in one fell swoop. Part of him wanted to say no - it was a big responsibility that was likely to intrude on his youthful ambitions that were largely focused around parties and sex, and how he'd like to start getting invitations to either. But there was also the curiosity of what such a magnificent role might entail, and, more importantly, what sort of chair he'd have.

There was the curiosity of what such a magnificent role might entail, and, more importantly, what sort of chair he'd have.

'If he doesn't recover, we can look at giving you the full-time gig,' Woodburner continued.

'But maybe he'll never recover,' interjected Whimplestein. Woodburner looked at him sternly. He didn't appreciate the interruption.

'I should imagine they've taken him to the Prince Edward Private Hospital,' the psychiatrist continued, 'and I understand he's highly allergic to penicillin.'

Jones wondered why he was being offered this information, and why the psychiatrist was now offering him a small bottle and a syringe.

'And if that doesn't work, try peanuts,' added Woodburner.

Surely they weren't advising him on how to finish Buffet off? They didn't think he was that desperate for the top job? Nobody would resort to such brutal measures, would they? He was, of course, very young and unaware of the ways of the corporate world.

It was with this woeful lack of experience that the very next day, Jones was installed, with very little fanfare or ceremony, as the third chief executive officer of VastTel. It was an impressive step up for a graduate who had spent his entire working life, of just a few months, totally unsure of what he was supposed to be doing.

In theory, his lack of experience provided the perfect continuity from his predecessor, who had been through his entire working life unsure of what he should be doing, and had, therefore, done nothing. Unfortunately for the government, Jones wasn't going to continue that tradition. He saw his appointment as an opportunity to drive change; to make the company efficient, competitive and profitable. This could be his big chance to make a name for himself. If he was heading up the biggest company in the country at 21, he could be prime minister by 30. He considered it a real possibility. After all, so far, none of it seemed particularly difficult.

If he was heading up the biggest company in the country at 21, he could be prime minister by 30. None of it seemed particularly difficult.

He was, of course, treading a dangerous path. The Duff government - and Holton-Lacey, in particular - would not take such ambition lying down. Jones didn't realise how he was putting his life in great danger, assuming the secret service could figure out how to operate a ZX240-G rocket launcher. And so, he quickly threw himself into his new role, blissfully unaware of the government's involvement in the business.

'Natalie,' he said through the intercom to his personal assistant, who was sitting outside, reading the first issue of Hot Flush, a magazine she had mistakenly assumed was aimed at middle-aged women, but instead was filled with classified advertisements for toilet bowls and cisterns. She was surprised to have a new boss who actually knew her name. She sometimes had difficulty remembering it herself, it was used so rarely.

'Can you organise a meeting with all my direct reports to start in an hour?' he asked. He'd been at work for less than an hour himself, but he was keen to get up to speed with what everyone was up to.

'I'm not sure I can organise a venue in so short a time.'

'We'll just use the boardroom,' he said. He'd seen it that morning as he walked into his office. There was an impressive, polished mahogany table, and some very interesting chairs that he was keen to try out. Although he doubted they could beat the Grade 1 Chair that he was sitting on. It was similar to a first-class airline seat, with a total recline capability and a full in-flight entertainment system built in.

'Well, Mr Buffet used to always use the main ballroom at the Hodbrook Hotel,' said Natalie.

Jones had been to the Hodbrook. The ballroom was huge.

'Won't the boardroom do?' he asked.

'I'll try for the Hodbrook,' she insisted. 'They can fit 200 people easily.'

'It's only for my direct reports,' he reminded her.

'And there are 200 of them,' she said.

Jones fell back in his chair. It reclined completely, made a tiny 'bing' noise, and the lights dimmed. He spent several minutes looking for a lever to return to the upright position, at one point causing an oxygen mask to fall down from the ceiling.

'Two hundred people. What do they all do?'

Natalie could hardly hear him. He had fallen back a long way from the intercom. No matter; she said she would do her best to get everyone together. He insisted that it happen that day, even though an emergency meeting like this would normally be called with at least two weeks' notice, to give people a chance to turn up to work or travel back from their spurious 'study tours' in Europe. A sudden meeting like this could only have, at best, half the team attending. Even they would have to be dragged from local cinemas or pulled off the golf course.

On paper, at least, the VastTel senior management team seemed like an impressive group of people. Many had held senior roles before, although it should be noted that a large proportion came from the television and advertising industries, so they were of limited use to society. They did help the economy, though, by spending their exaggerated salaries on expensive cars, big houses and useless things from those direct mail catalogues that sell everything from weather vanes to authentic leather banana holders. When they became retrenched, the government would quickly move these people to a senior role at VastTel, so as to maintain their spending levels.

Not all came from high-paying jobs, however. Some were just eligible for so many government handouts that it was actually cheaper to give them a good job at VastTel. The head of Mobile Devices, for example, was a former bricklayer from Sydney's west, who had been on far too many handouts, having ruptured himself attempting to conceive his fourteenth child.

The head of Mobile Devices was a former bricklayer who had been on far too many handouts, having ruptured himself attempting to conceive his fourteenth child.

So far, the VastTel scheme had worked. People were paid money, did very little, but helped to keep money moving around the economy. Occasionally, a new appointee would accept the role and diligently turn up for work and even attempt to make business decisions. This was, of course, discouraged by other members of the senior management team. Instead, they were given smart new mobile phones and taught how to spend their days micro blogging, the easiest way to distract anyone from getting on with something useful.

Finding out what 200 senior executives were up to was a big challenge for a single meeting. Jones decided to spend the intervening time seeing what he could discover on the corporate intranet and in his predecessor's email inbox. He assumed each of his reports would have each filed weekly reports, and there would be various statistical dashboards to help him see how different elements of the corporation were performing, although a glance at the computer gave him some doubts. The machine looked like a museum piece, and there was a thick layer of dust covering the keyboard. Clearly, it hadn't been touched for years. Still, he flicked it on and waited for the familiar Brian Eno-composed notes that normally told you that your computer would be ready any day now, just as soon as it has finished downloading 47 updates off the net.

But that didn't happen. In fact, it loaded very quickly. First, the screen was black; then, a few numbers flashed up to tell him he had 512 megabytes of storage space and 8 megabytes of memory. Then the 'a:>' prompt appeared.

'DOS!' said Jones, who had read about the days when computers needed to be programmed to do anything, and were, by and large, useless. Or was that Vista?

'DOS!' said Jones, who had read about the days when computers needed to be programmed to do anything, and were, by and large, useless. Or was that Vista?

'Mr Buffet never used that thing,' said Natalie, who came in to the office with a pot of tea and a selection of biscuits. Jones had never seen such an assortment. It was one of the key performance indicators foisted on her by someone in human resources, who had been to a conference on employee measurement, and thought it should be implemented across the whole organisation. It never got beyond Natalie, and even then she had just the one indicator, related to the timely delivery of tea and biscuits. Her performance appraisal last year had focused largely on the need to improve the ratio of chocolate biscuits in the selection, and to dunk the teabag for just a few seconds longer.

'I think he got it the day he started, and he never turned it on,' she said, offering the use of her machine. 'I rarely use it myself,' she confessed. 'And besides, I've got to go shopping. We're almost out of custard creams.'

He took Natalie up on the offer and sat at her small desk outside his rather palatial one, while she tottered off down the corridor in a pair of heels that would be a similar vintage to Buffet's old computer.

There were a few hours to go before his 200 or so direct reports gathered at the Hodbrook Hotel. Rather frustratingly, he lost half that time while Natalie's computer uploaded its software updates, including a rather belated fix for the Y2K bug.

He didn't have time to wait for the computer to gradually bring itself into the 21st century, so he cancelled the downloads, and soon after a very early version of Windows loaded. As it turned out, it wasn't a smart move. The computer harboured a myriad of viruses, including one particularly ferocious one that had been waiting patiently to be reconnected to the outside world. This ancient piece of malware had been activated when someone had opened an email promising racy shots of Raquel Welch, taken many, many years before she hit menopause.

Not that viruses were anything new at VastTel. They were spreading all the time, making machines operate progressively slower. In most companies, this would have been seen as a bad thing. They might even go as far as trying to eradicate them. But at VastTel, as computers got slower, everyone just adjusted their working speed accordingly. The company was literally grinding to a halt, and no one seemed to notice or care.

Jones had noticed, and it was driving him mad, but for now he was content to simply find his predecessor's email account and get up to speed on whatever projects had been keeping him busy.

He'd have to work quickly, though. Already, the Raquel Welch virus was deleting content on the hard drive, and starting to work its way across the organisation. Next time anyone turned on their computer, all their files and emails would have vanished, killing off minutes, in some cases hours, of work. And VastTel had a policy of not backing up work, because: a) there was hardly any work to back-up; and b) no one really knew how to do it.

While some of the more recent emails were being eaten away by Raquel Welch, Jones was finding many of the older emails particularly interesting, including a consultancy report from Whitlam, Beevis & Hogsbreath, marked 'Highly Confidential. Not to be read by anyone.' The confidentiality clause had been placed on the report by the consultants themselves, who advised that nobody at VastTel was ready for these sorts of findings, and, consequently, the report should not be read by anyone, even - in fact, particularly - the CEO. It looked like the recommendation had been adopted. The hefty consultancy fee had been paid, and no one had read beyond this front-page suggestion. It was the first time any recommendation from a consultant had been adopted by the phone company.

The consultants advised that the report should not be read by anyone, particularly the CEO. It was the first time any recommendation had been adopted by VastTel.

Jones decided to read more.

'Recommendation one: that you do not read this report. You might find the results disturbing.'

'Recommendation two: that at least three quarters of the VastTel workforce are instantly retrenched. There is no evidence that they provide any benefit to the corporation. It doesn't matter which three quarters you choose.'

'Recommendation three: that the entire executive team is replaced.'

'Recommendation four: if recommendation three is untenable, that the company moves out of telecommunications altogether and focuses on something simpler, like running a florist shop.'

'Recommendation five: that's just one shop. I don't think you could manage the complexity of a chain.'

It was certainly a damning report. From what Jones had already experienced, it didn't come as a total revelation. Nor was it a surprise that no one had read beyond the front page. Even if they'd wanted to, there were so many reports produced each day, each paid for based on their weight. Sometimes they were given a cursory glance, to check that the consultants hadn't tried to pull a fast one by including a lot of blank pages, or including photocopied sections from the phone directory, but none were ever read in full.

Consultants knew this, which is why the author of the Whitlam, Beevis & Hogsbreath report felt able to write in paragraph four, page 48, 'is anyone actually reading this?' before exploring the notion eight pages later that the senior executive team members at VastTel were a 'bunch of c***-sucking wankers'. The final four chapters of the document were lifted ad verbatim from AA Milne's 1928 children's classic, The House at Pooh Corner.

The final four chapters of the document were lifted ad verbatim from AA Milne's 1928 children's classic, 'The House at Pooh Corner'.

It was clear to Jones that there hadn't been any control whatsoever in the organisation. That had to change. And he had the youthful confidence to believe that he was the man (just) who could bring about that change. It would be a difficult task, but he was determined to start right away, at his senior team meeting. Well, almost straight away. The meeting was already getting off to a late start. Natalie wasn't back from her shopping trip. She had visited seven stores trying to find custard creams, which she desperately needed - she was three packets off reaching her annual performance-related pay bonus.

The Incumbent is Phil Dobbie's first novel and these excerpts have been used with his permission. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. To purchase the entire novel in digital format, click here. It is also available in printed format ... for more details click here.

On this week's Patch Monday podcast, Brown, who has been working with Anonymous for about a year and a half, discusses the hacktivist group's position in the wake of revelations that Sabu, a core member and informal leader of the offshoot hacking group LulzSec, had become an FBI informant.

Anonymous has as many faces as it has members, of course. Although Brown is a very public face for the hacktivist group, he stressed that he speaks only for himself. His connections to Anonymous, and its offshoot LulzSec, have included the internet relay chat (IRC) channel AnonOps, where many of the group's "operations" are discussed.

"The AnonOps server, for instance, is not what it was like a year ago, more than a year ago. It's very different now in terms of who's there, what they're doing, if they care," Brown said.

"It's simply the nature of the beast. When you have a crowd-sourced operation, just like a democracy, it's only going to be as good as its participants."

Brown believes that Anonymous' lack of leadership, and antipathy to any form of structure, has worked against it.

"A lot of people made a lot of mistakes, including myself. Just various day-to-day or larger tactical [or] strategic errors," he said.

"It obviously didn't help that you had this large operation, called AntiSec, that really disenchanted a lot of people outside and inside; and that was, of course, encouraged by the FBI, we now know."

To leave an audio comment on the program, Skype to stilgherrian, or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

Running time: 40 minutes, 12 seconds

This morning, Crikey pointed out a news item from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which said that its voluntary confidential reporting scheme, REPCON, had received complaints about passengers using their phones for texting and internet during flights from Sydney to Melbourne.

REPCON approached the operator of the flight (without saying which airline it was), and published the gist of the operator's response.

The airline said that its records since the beginning of last year show that its cabin crew have reported passengers using their mobile phones over 500 times, which it felt showed that the cabin crew are aware of the requirements around not operating mobile phones on-board, and are vigilant in ensuring compliance. It also said that the passengers who might have seemed to be sending text messages were perhaps only writing them with the handset in flight mode, and not necessarily sending them.

The most telling comment, however, was this one:

"The reports we receive also highlight passenger reluctance and attitudes towards [personal electronic device] usage, and the belief it is the operator's policy and not a regulatory requirement," the airline said.

That is, even though cabin crews take mobile phone bans seriously, the passengers don't. Society's always-on mentality just doesn't allow for the passengers of today to take the "turn off your mobile phone" request to heart.

And given that there are only a limited number of cabin crew for an ever increasing number of passengers on-board, how is the airline supposed to enforce something that is obviously still considered a safety issue?

The ATSB said at the bottom of the report:

"The use of mobile phones and other electronic devices is restricted, as they could interfere with vital aircraft navigation systems ...It is very important that passengers listen to and comply with announcements from the cabin crew when these restrictions apply."

The problem is that no one knows whether a plane has ever gone down because someone used a mobile phone; not only are there very few crashes, but aircraft are also such complicated beasts that it's often difficult to pinpoint what has caused a mid-flight event.

Remember the Airbus that suddenly dropped 600 feet (about 190 metres) off the coast of Western Australia in 2008? More than 110 of the 303 passengers and nine of the 12 crew members were injured. The consensus is that a software error caused the drop, but what caused the software error is still uncertain. Mobile phone interference was ruled out in this case, but who's to say it always will be? After all, one theory for the drop is that a "high-energy particle" flew down from space and flipped the ones and zeros in the system. Sounds a bit kooky, doesn't it?

In the end, they just don't know what caused it. There's still so much that we don't understand about science and technology. Although we've become blase about the risks of air travel, we are still travelling in a metal tube thousands of metres off the ground. If the safety regulators think that we shouldn't use our mobile phones, then it's probably a good idea not to use them.

Yet, as we've seen above, people don't think like that. They see someone else using their mobile, see that the plane keeps on flying and think that the airlines are just overreacting. So they use their phone, too.

Let's think about it like the piracy phenomenon. If users can't access their favourite show because it's too expensive or is provided to them later than it airs in the US, they pirate it. Similarly, if users can't access the internet or call people via an official service, they'll unofficially do it.

Currently, airborne internet and phone calls often aren't available, or are prohibitively expensive. If airlines want to stop people from "pirating" - whipping out their mobile phones when no one is looking - then carriers need to provide a cheap, viable alternative that provides a service on their own terms, and that they believe won't affect key systems. And not just to the business elite, but to the cattle class, too. This would mean cutting into the margins that the airlines are hoping for by offering a premium service to provide access to Wi-Fi, however, could stop rogue mobile use.

The question is: will airlines think safety, or the bottom line? Unfortunately, we already have the music and film industries to show us the answer.

Stick your cappuccino in your favourite travel mug and get this week's episode of Technolatte.

On this week's show:

• How did the IT industry fare in the Federal Budget?
• What are entrepreneurs doing on a boat?
• How many jobs will CenITex be shedding?
• MasterCard launches its own digital wallet.

Subscribe to Technolatte on iTunes.

Running time: 23 minutes, 27 seconds

In a photo walkthrough posted to Reddit this week, a user found that by inserting Australian reference tags into the US store's URL, the transaction is processed at lower prices than what you can get on the Australian Adobe store.

We love a bargain, and hate the Australia tax, so we thought we'd give it a go.

Has Adobe already become wise to our act?

Watch the video to find out.

This unfortunately named "BlueBusters" spoof video was recently unearthed and posted to YouTube by Network World. It shows three protagonists armed with Macintosh-powered proton packs wandering around, zapping away IBM PCs and replacing them with Apple units.

The video ends with an amazing shot of the late Steve Jobs dressed in one of the weaponised Macintosh suits, singing along to the BlueBusters adaptation of the Ghostbusters theme song.

The clip was supposedly put together for Apple's 1984 worldwide staff meeting in Hawaii.

One YouTube comment sums it up perfectly: "these are like leaked sex tapes for Apple nerds".

Watch the video to see Apple cross the streams.

The telco has announced the departure date of outgoing CEO Dr Paul Reynolds, which will be at the end of June.

Unfortunately, his successor, Simon Moutter, won't be on-board until 1 September, so what was it to do?

Step forward Chris Quin, the popular boss of Gen-i, who had been touted by many as the favourite for the job.

From 1 June, he will be acting CEO of Telecom for three months, with Reynolds holding his hand for the first month of the changeover.

As I said, it does seem a little cruel to treat Quin this way. So, he's good enough to be the boss for a few months, when you need him the most, but not to run the telco long term?

It's like Telecom is giving him a prize, a taste of power and joy, only to take it from him a few months later.

However upsetting it might be for Quin, he will just have to suck it up. The long-term prize could well be worth it.

When Reynolds was appointed several years back, two of the Telecom insiders chasing after the job did a runner.

Among them was the new guy, Simon Moutter, who did a three-month stint as acting Telecom CEO before leaving to run Auckland International Airport.

So it's possible that Quin could stay with Telecom, proving his loyalty in spades, until Simon Moutter calls it a day, or gets fired.

As they say, "patience is a virtue", and Chris Quin may get his just desserts in the end.

The original plan from 2010 said that 127,000 greenfield premises would be passed by June this year, with 97,000 of them active. In January, they announced that they had connected just 2315.

NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley told Senate Estimates last week that the original figures were unrealistic and would be revised, along with other assumptions, in the new plan. If the original assumptions were optimistic, isn't it safe to assume, then, that the new plan will have a higher total cost of delivery? How will the government cope with having to impart the news that costs are rising, given their current politic situation?

In this week's Twisted Wire podcast, IBRS analyst Guy Cranswick calls for more transparency in reporting NBN targets, whilst commentator Kevin Morgan suggests that the magnitude of an increase in cost could be considerable.

Higher costs don't mean that the NBN isn't still worth doing, of course. Marco Forzati from Acreo, a Swedish Research Institute, talks through a cost-benefit analysis (PDF) that suggests that the economic advantages of fibre to the home are very marked, particularly in regional areas.

Perhaps, if the government does a better job of selling the benefits, we'll be more prepared to accept a hike in the cost of delivery. But selling has never been this government's strong suit.

Tell us what you think on the Twisted Wire feedback line - 02 9304 5198.

Yet, with the NBN firmly in business-as-usual mode, and its off-the-books treatment long ago given the tick of approval by economic powers much greater than Tony Abbott, these predictable responses mask a more uncomfortable truth: the Liberal Party faces a curious situation, where it has to criticise the same kind of razor-gang budget amelioration as it has staunchly advocated and promised, should it assume government next year. Recognising that he's in a difficult position, Tony Abbott spent more time attacking Craig Thomson in the press than discussing the details of the Budget - which is probably more like what his own would have been, were he in charge.

"Can we still build it, Julia?" "Yes, we can!*" *Subject to budget constraints, union action, skills availability and change of government.
(Screenshot by David Braue/ZDNet Australia)

By the day's end, Turnbull, as ever prone to casuistry, was talking about cookbooks - er, cooked books - and apparently forgetting himself as he attacked Stephen Conroy's department for a massive blowout because it brought forward $421 million in payments to Telstra (one of Turnbull's biggest arguments for his alternative NBN policy is that the Coalition will bring forward its payments to Telstra).

The relative merits and disadvantages of this year's Budget will be debated until the proverbial bovines return to their abodes. But the kind of budget-cutting that Labor has demonstrated has not only stolen the march on some of the Opposition's opposition, but has also suggested that the NBN is, and will continue to be, viable in a climate of careful attention to budgetary constraints. The rest of the IT industry may be in neutral, as far as the Budget is concerned, but NBN Co is continuing to go hell for leather to meet its build objectives.

Labor has effectively borrowed philosophy from Bob the Builder (and, perhaps, Barack Obama's 2008 election campaign). "Can we fix it?" Bob asks his team. "Yes, we can!"they shout, although, in the real world, their unqualified enthusiasm might be tempered by the ever-present threat of union action, project-management delays, budgetary cutbacks and vociferous opposition.

[Abbott's] predictable responses mask a more uncomfortable truth...

Nonetheless, despite its most severe belt tightening ever, Labor is determined to save room for dessert. And in challenging a Budget that both takes away from the public service and gives back to the public, Abbott may just have to pick up the fork and join in. What other options does he have? It's hardly politically palatable to argue that he would slash budgets further, lay off more public servants or delay or cancel more government programs - although Victoria's Ted Baillieu recently showed that to be an entirely possible course of action.

Such is budgeting in the new age of austerity - and it's not inconsistent with the general trends we have been seeing across the telecoms industry, which recognised the need for a new way of operating some time ago. The need to consolidate infrastructure, for example, is reflected in such telecoms seismic shifts as the Foxtel-Austar merger, iiNet's purchase of Internode, M2 Telecommunication's purchase of Primus and, most recently, the expanded facilities-sharing agreement between Optus and VHA.

Abbott's Liberals have decried such moves as indicative of the NBN's power to kill off competition in the sector, but competition is about a lot more than just ensuring that there are many small operators fighting each other tooth and nail to build unprofitable infrastructure. In a world where private-sector telecoms investment has dropped off, and entire countries are staring bankruptcy in the face, the survivors will not be those that doggedly press on with growth-era business strategies.

Like the government, the telecoms industry is in an era of downsizing and consolidation that is currently borne out of strategy, but will eventually, if things get worse, become a mark of desperation. At that point, will the NBN eventually have to follow suit?

Like the government, the telecoms industry is in an era of downsizing.

Arguments will be made both ways: Abbott's Liberals, for example, will likely argue that if the government were serious about its budgetary discipline, it would scale back its expenditure on the NBN, and extend the project's timeline or reduce its scope (of course, then they would turn around and say that it's taking too long, and that their alternative NBN will be faster and cheaper).

More telling still: figures in the Budget suggest that it would now cost $1.8 billion to cancel the construction of the NBN - a cost that Malcolm Turnbull would have to figure into his cost-benefit analysis, should he attempt to wind back the project in office.

It is, perhaps, a salvation for the industry that the NBN is being handled off the books, since Labor would otherwise have had no option but to scale it back within the context of its savage budget cuts. This would have been necessary in the spirit of equanimity - it's hard to justify paring back defence budgets, but leaving communications spending untouched - but by treating the NBN as an investment, the government has been able to leave NBN Co to its own devices. And that, given the constraints imposed by the new era of austerity, may be all that our telecoms industry could have hoped for.

What do you think? By sparing the budget rod, has Labor spoiled the NBN? Should it have scaled back the effort in the spirit of austerity? And how does this Budget change the game for the Coalition's opposition?

The pessimism isn't surprising, given that the government has had to deal with falling revenues, and is looking for $20 billion in savings in order to deliver its promised surplus.

The question is, where will the cuts fall? And will the IT industry, for which the government has always been a major client, be hard hit?

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has said, ahead of the budget, that it hopes the government will recognise ICT's "growing contribution" to the economy, with the industry likely to add 35,000 extra jobs by 2014.

The ACS said that it would like to see expenditure in ICT education programs to increase ICT course enrolments and support ICT skills creation. It also believes that funding is required to encourage businesses and citizens to engage in the digital economy by using better technology.

Internet Industry Association (IIA) chairman, Bruce Lin, told Computerworld that he also wants money for training, but that he is betting on the deferment of spending this year.

Eyes will certainly be on the Department of Defence (DoD), which has been earmarked for $5 billion in cuts. Many in the industry will also be looking at e-health; the $466 million in funding laid out in 2010 for the personally controlled electronic health records (PCEHR) program runs out at the end of June, despite the fact that there is still much more work to be done to get it off the ground. The Australian Financial Review is expecting changes to the research and development tax incentives, while there are also concerns that government jobs will take a hit.

Unfortunately, we don't need to wait to know that at least some pain is on its way, as Ovum analyst Kevin Noonan reminded various publications. The mid-year economic and fiscal outlook released in November revealed a 2.5 per cent ($500 million) efficiency dividend, and a 20 per cent ($230 million) cut to capital costs to come into effect from 1 July, which Noonan believes will hit IT where it hurts.

The efficiency dividend is to be met through measures, such as reducing consultant and contractor use and using tele-presence instead of travelling, while the capital cuts are to come from agencies "re-prioritising the replacement or maintenance of IT systems", as well as other equipment.

Noonan highlighted hardware and software refreshes as the places where funding cuts would come, and said that governments would look ever more lovingly at cloud.

Yet, there's always a ray of sunshine in the gloom. Even in saving years, IT often comes out on top, with government "investing to save" - a phrase I stole from IBM, which spoke recently to the Australian Financial Review on the topic.

IBM is hoping that there will be more money thrown into IT, with the aim of increasing productivity and reducing personnel costs.

"I would hope that there would be some recognition that spending on technology can actually net you different benefits down the track, rather than looking for quick savings," CFO Sara Watts said.

Gartner released a forecast in April for the Federal Government's spending, which said that it expects an increase in IT spending from 2012-13 of 3.74 per cent, rising from $5.79 billion to $6.01 billion. The growth will also continue further, Gartner predicted, saying that spending will reach $6.48 billion by 2015.

Given this, perhaps IBM's hopes will be met, and the government will think of technology as its saviour, and not as a place to use the razor. We'll just have to wait until tonight to see.

Don't forget to visit ZDNet Australia tonight, when Josh Taylor will be reporting on budget initiatives as they are announced.