Conroy: don’t be coy on Telstra proposal, says Minchin

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 14 December 2008 11:08

IT Industry - Strategy

It might be the political silly season but the Shadow Minister for Communications is pouring the pressure onto Minister for Communications, Senator Stephen Conroy, to come clean on whether Telstra’s “non-compliant proposal” has “made the cut” in the bid to build the NBN.

Ah, the National Broadband Network (NBN), the Federal Australian Government’s plan to fibre-up the country with optical fibre to deliver broadband to 98% of the population.

It’s been an amazing year, with deadlines missed, proposals proposed, Terria terrorised by Telstra, Telstra demanding special conditions and no-one knowing if the NBN will even start construction before the next Federal election.

Of course, the Federal Opposition, previously in Government for over a decade, had 18 broadband plans that never quite turned into a “national broadband network”, giving the current Government an extra plank to win the previous election with.

But now that the current Government is in power, the shenanigans continue, with both sides of politics still going at it hammer and tong, with the people still waiting for the NBN to start construction and for affordable high-speed broadband to materialise.

Although several proposals (not tenders) were recently submitted to the Federal Government for examination by the NBN “expert panel”, the issue of Telstra’s “non-complying proposal” has been one that has had many people talking.

Questions have revolved around whether the non-complying proposal actually qualified to be considered by the “expert panel”, with Telstra insisting that it absolutely did.

Now, days after the proposals were... tendered, as opposed to tenders being tendered, Australia’s Shadow Minister for Communications, Senator Nick Minchin, has let loose with both broadband barrels to demand that the Minister for Communications, Senator Stephen Conroy, come clean on whether he (and the “expert panel”) proposes that Telstra’s proposal is acceptable.

What the Shadow Minister, Senator Nick Minchin, proposes (and demands) on the proposal conundrum can be seen on page 2. I propose that you click this link to see what he had to say.