A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing - that pretty such sums up the story of Australia's move to digital television.

After a decade of finding new and interesting ways to screw up the introduction of digital television, Senator Coonan finally introduced "Digital Australia" in late 2006 to educate Australians about the move to digital television. Eighteen months later, with a change of government, Coonan has a lot more television-watching time on her hands. As her replacement Senator Conroy struts and frets his hour upon the stage, his big plan is to scrap Digital Australia and appoint his own committee - the Digital Switchover Taskforce - to create the illusion of progress.

Here's Conroy's new script;

* $8.5 million for the Australian Communications and Media Authority to undertake technical switchover-related projects, including an evaluation of digital TV transmission and reception throughout Australia.
* $4.8 million for a ‘Digital Tracker' to assess issues such as public awareness of digital switchover, intention of households to convert and actual conversion rates.
* $1 million over two years for research into digital reception problems in multi-unit dwellings with a shared TV antenna system.
* $6.7 million for a logo and labelling scheme to clearly indicate which products are digitally ready, ensuring Australian consumers can be informed and confident about what products will suit their needs.
* $16.9 million for the Digital Switchover Taskforce, which will coordinate the switchover program within the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

If all this sounds like a rerun, that's because it is. There's nothing in there that convinces me we're actually getting anywhere. Can we please stop talking about how were going to talk about moving to digital television and just get on with the job?