If you want to see the importance of broadband in the world then go no further than the recent Australian Federal Election.

Julia Gillard was announced as Australia's Prime Minister yesterday after a narrow victory over opposition leader Tony Abbot.

The election produced a 'hung-parliament' and not surprisingly it was one of the most close-run elections in Australia's recent history. But it was Gillard who finally won the battle with a 76 seat to 74 seat victory.

The extra 2 seats came via some rural MP's who were swung by the fact Gillard was preparing to invest $43bn (£26bn) into the nations broadband infrastructure.

At the moment Telstra, the Aussie's equivalent of BT, offers ADSL+2 technology which offers speeds of up to 20Mb.

This isn't too bad, but what Australians, and most importantly Ms Gillard, have noticed is that fibre optic broadband is the way of the future. Something that the British Government has also hopefully acknowledged.