Minchin introduces bill to get $43B NBN plan scrutinised

Stuart Corner
Monday, 15 June 2009 18:22

IT Industry - Strategy

Shadow communications minister, senator Nick Minchin, has introduced a private member's bill into the Senate which, if passed, would require the Government's $43 billion National Broadband Network proposal to be assessed by Infrastructure Australia (IA).

Infrastructure Australia operates under the terms of the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008 which stipulates that the body "has the primary function of providing advice to the Minister, Commonwealth, State, Territory and local governments, investors in infrastructure and owners of infrastructure on matters relating to infrastructure.  The body's functions, as set out in the Act, include assessment of "policy, pricing and regulatory issues that may impact on the utilisation of infrastructure" and "to evaluate proposals for investment in, or enhancements to, nationally significant infrastructure".

Minchin's bill would amend the Act to allow for either House of Parliament to refer any infrastructure proposal to Infrastructure Australia for analysis and assessment under these terms.

In particular the proposed amendment would require IA to assess the NBN against the Building Australia Fund evaluation criteria since the government is proposing to use $2.4b from this fund for the NBN. The BAF evaluation criteria stipulate that a proposal "should demonstrate through a cost-benefit analysis that the proposal represents good value for money."

"This bill is designed to ensure that some degree of proper scrutiny and due diligence is applied to a project that will put at risk billions of taxpayer dollars," Minchin said. "It requires IA to provide a written report to the minister for communications, outlining details of assessment methodology, which is to be tabled in Parliament."

He added: "Labor has said its original failed NBN Mark I proposal was immune from IA scrutiny because it was an election promise. This lame excuse does not cut it for NBN Mark II, as it is an entirely different and vastly more expensive proposal."