To my great surprise my MP responded promptly. Basically because I had a dig about their cancellation of the NBN and thus of provision of satellite to rural homes. His response follows:

"... but before then let's not suggest for one minute this government had or has anything to do with cancelling rollout of the NBN anywhere in Australia. 

The reason you do not have satellite currently is because of the incompetence of Senator Conroy and the government of which he was a part. The guarantees and promises made to thousands of Australians had zero chance of being delivered. We are very sorry they lied to you. "

Which I guess tells you how far i will get with him. Apparently the latest idea of the Liberal government is that they will upgrade mobile signals in black spots such as the one in which I live. This will mean my phone works (not necessarily a good thing as I like being able to decide when to respond to calls). And they imagine they can deliver broadband using the same technology. And to it more cheaply than via satellite. I gather this is being unduly optimistic and doubt it will do anything other than limit my already paltry download limits.

Still, I will focus discussions on the inequitable costs associated with delivery of services in rural areas that arrive for half the price via a home phone in urban areas. To give you a better picture of how things stand:

Urban setting - you can get ADSL with your phone for a connection fee (ie wires from the street to your front door) of $300.00. For $113.00 you get a phone and 500gig download.

Rural - you can't get ADSL, but you can get wireless. You pay for the Dongle (mine cost $200), you pay for the booster aerial ($800.00) and you get a maximum 15gig download for $95.00 per month.

If you decide to get a satellite dish it will set you back $3000, and you will be limited to 5 gig a month, which I gather from friends who have one, is still a very slow download.

You can hopefully see my point.

Since it was mainly grey and drizzly today I spent it lazing in front of the fire with a good novel - very relaxing.