Senator Conroy Calls For Telcos To Wear Red Underpants On Their Heads. Yes, Really.



It’s been a week of political pimping as Prime Minister Julia Gillard and a crack team of local ministers and dignitaries flew to New York to get Australia a spot on the United Nations’ Security Council. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was also there addressing the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information conference, where he voiced a potential plan to get telcos to wear underwear on their heads for access to the government’s upcoming spectrum auctions.

Conroy was talking about his “unfettered legal powers” as Australia’s communication’s minister, saying that the NBN couldn’t be replicated elsewhere due to the complex legal relationship between the Australia’s telcos and the government.

Here’s the quote, dutifully reported by those top-notch folks over at CommsDay. The emphasis is our own, but you hardly need it:

“The regulation of telecommunications powers in Australia is exclusively federal. That means I am in charge of spectrum auctions, and if I say to everyone in this room ‘if you want to bid in our spectrum auction you’d better wear red underpants on your head’, I’ve got some news for you. You’ll be wearing them on your head. I have unfettered legal power.”

…I don’t even…

Is it something in the water over there? It has to be. Why else would politicians say such stupid things in front of large groups? [CommsDay]

Image: Meme Generator