I think people often confuse rights with essentials. To say that a product or a service is essential is not the same as saying it is a right to be provided by the state. When you add up income tax, GST, petrol tax and other levies and local government rates we are forced to pay close to half of our income on government. Many of us are struggling to pay for all this. This is a causative factor in the recession and is slowing our ability to recover. This is unsustainable and we are steadily loosing the right to set our own priorities as individuals. Those who want faster broadband should pay for it themselves when and if private providers offer it period.

They’re a necessary part of the community though.”

Doesn’t make them rights.And a community is only an abstraction of human individuals…who are the only entities that have rights as its only they who exist.When the human individuals seperate the group ceases to exist…but the individual still does.

The only value of any group is its benefit to the individuals comprising it…if that group becomes detrimental to the individuals composing it it will collapse.See The USSR,Red China,Socialist NZ for the last 80 odd years.Groups that threaten and deminish the human individual are doomed from inception….

Education,housing,healthcare,internet etc are services to pay for if you want them….they are not rights.

They’re a necessary part of the community though.

BTW, linking to Rand just shows that you really don’t know WTF you’re talking about. Rand was a delusional nutcase and her theories should be treated with the contempt that they deserve.

“A right is a moral sanction,to freedom of action,in a social context”

Meaning that they are actions you may take without needing the permission of anyone else to do so.They only true,non contradictory rights are those expoused so brilliantly back in 1776 at the foundation of the first morally based country in human history,the USA. (Sadly now long departed from these ideals and just another failed socialists swamp)the rights to life,liberty,property and the pursuit of happiness.Note that to enact these rights no-one elses exact same rights need be violated…all thats required is for people to do nothing…just leave the person alone.Simple…as nature makes it thanks to the laws of identity and non-contradiction.

The discredited UN’s declaration of Human rights falls into massive contradioction from about article 21 onwards and is no credicle source for rights study.

Best explanation of real,individual rights here

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_man_rights

Internet access a “fundamental right”?

I suggest that you should encourage your Labour colleagues to read it so that you understand what fundamental right is, which it should be primary (first principle) not secondary (ie, derived from primary).

There is no fundamental right to broadband access, just as there is no fundamental right to spaceship travel to the moon. These are things to be paid for if you have the money. Otherwise something has to be forced to pay for them and to provide or create them.

The essential aspect of rights and freedoms is that no-one has to be forced to pay for or supply them. They impose no burden on anyone else.

Frankly that’s how it should be, government shouldnt be forcing everyone on to ADSL technology – so long as ‘broadband’ is available everywhere, then the technology should be irrelevant.

I cant think of many other countries that would expect private companies to subsidise the lifestyle of people living in remote locations. If people are going to choose to live in the middle of no where – then there will be some additional costs associated – simple as that.