IT WAS a decision that went down to the wire - literally.

Broadband wire, to be exact.

Independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott yesterday stumped with the Labor Party due in large part to its $43 billion National Broadband Network.

Communications is a vital issue in country areas and underpins much of what we all do.

"Critical" was how Windsor described telecommunications, adding that Labor's NBN plan was "too good an opportunity to miss".

Consider how much you rely on the internet, email and mobile phone.

Now consider how you would feel if you couldn't get mobile phone coverage in your lounge room, had to survive on dial-up internet speeds, and sending a photo by email ran the risk of paralysing your computer.

Do not underestimate the feeling in regional Australia that they are getting left behind in this age of technology.

Health and education increasingly rely on the internet, and higher speeds are the only way to deliver the services to the country that are already enjoyed by the metro population.

Oakeshott and Windsor obviously heard that message in choosing to side with a Government not naturally aligned with their political views, nor those of their electorates.

Telecommunications was one of the few areas that separated Labor and the Coalition in the election campaign.

How the Coalition expected to persuade rural Australia, and then the independents, with its Band-Aid $6 billion broadband policy that handed control to the same private enterprises that have neglected rural Australia for years is beyond me.

It was also, apparently, beyond Oakeshott and Windsor.

"You do it once, you do it right and you do it with fibre," Windsor said yesterday.

Katter was also of the same view, but his hatred of the mining tax, emissions trading scheme and Labor's treatment of his best friend, Kevin Rudd, far outweighed that consideration.

So, what will yesterday's decision mean for rural Australia?

"Regional Australia (will get) a package that has never been seen before and will turbo-charge regional Australia," Oakeshott said in his announcement.

Prime Minster Julia Gillard wasted no time promising that regional Australia will be given priority in the NBN rollout, infrastructure and health services.

All up, $9.9 billion is heading regional Australia's way. The spectre of Oakeshott becoming a minister in a Gillard Government is a real game changer.

The obvious portfolios are agriculture or a new regional development portfolio.

A ministry puts him not only in charge of a bureaucracy with a multi-billion dollar budget, it gives him a place at the executive decision table to deliberate over issues well beyond rural Australia.

It would be an extraordinary development in an extraordinary time.

Finally, expect some heavy soul-searching within the National Party.

Each day of this Gillard Government, the Nationals will have to grit their teeth as they watch the benefits for regional Australia unfold - benefits won by two independents who were once National MPs.

Both Windsor and Oakeshott were at pains to say they bore no malice towards their former colleagues, and their defection played no part in their decision.

But when Windsor lamented the fact rural Australia is no longer represented by the major parties, and Oakeshott said he considered which party would "try to knife us and head to the polls", it hardly sounded like a ringing endorsement for the Coalition and their former party.

  • Ed Gannon is editor of The Weekly Times