Coalition demands Expert Panel’s NBN report: Minchin

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 20 January 2009 09:06

IT Industry - Strategy

Senator Minchin then took the opportunity to remind Senator Conroy of his own comments made in December 2007:  “We will hold an open and transparent process to determine who will build the network with our ambition being to complete the process by the end of June next year (2008).”

In relation to the ACCC report, Senator Minchin also referred the Minister to comments made by Optus director of government and corporate affairs Maha Krishnapillai during a Senate Select Committee hearing on the NBN last October.

“We certainly think that whatever advice goes from the ACCC to the government should be released publicly, full stop … we think maximum transparency around ACCC involvement is very, very important,” Mr Krishnapillai said.

“It seems the only person who doesn’t think the public should be kept fully informed about this process and given a say is Senator Conroy,” Senator Minchin said.

Of course, such snarkiness between political parties is always to be expected, with political point scoring seemingly more important than any kind of bipartisan outcome for the good of Australia’s citizens.

Senator Minchin must also be reminded that his political party had well over a decade to sort these issues out whilst actually in power, although technology has made rapid advances in that time.

Australia’s telecommunications environment also hasn’t been the most straightforward over the past few years, either.

Still, we have the environment we have, and quite how the entire episode will end up is unfortunately quite unclear.

Let’s just hope that after all the expert pummeling of the Expert Panel by all sides of the spectrum, it ends up offering useful recommendations that lead to real action on the NBN, and not yet more delays.