ALP's Tasmanian fund raising dinner raises eyebrows

Stuart Corner
Monday, 13 July 2009 13:54

IT Industry - Strategy

An ALP election fund raising dinner in Tasmania charging $5000 per head and to be hosted by communications minister Stephen Conroy and Tasmanian premier David Bartlett is raising concerns in the run up to multimillion dollar contracts being awarded to rollout the NBN in Tasmania.

Reporting on the planned dinner, the Hobart Mercury  noted that "It comes as the Federal Government prepares to spend up to $700million on the National Broadband Network in Tasmania...and...there are concerns the largest infrastructure project since Hydro dams will not go to open tender, even though work is scheduled to begin by the end of this month."

The Federal Government has made much of its plans to kick off the NBN in Tasmania. The day after the main announcement, April 7, Conroy and prime minster Kevin Rudd flew down to Tasmania to join Bartlett in announcing the government's NBN plans for Tasmania.

They promised that the NBN would begin rolling out in Tasmania as early as July 2009, saying that the Tasmanian Government, in conjunction with Aurora Energy, would construct a fibre to the premises (FTTP) network which would deliver speeds of 100Mbps, connecting over 200,000 Tasmanian households and businesses and would extend to all hospitals and almost 90 percent of schools.

However as it is now mid July that promise is starting to look decidedly empty. It certainly could only be realised without putting contracts out to tender.

The Mercury also claimed that NEC had scored an early win with the Government saying: "Last month NEC announced it had been made an exclusive partner of the Tasmanian Government to establish a server network and databank for web-based applications once the NBN is deployed."

It claimed that the deal had come about following a MoU between NEC and the Government to pursue opportunities arising from the NBN which it said "had been signed in May but never announced publicly by the State Government."

NEC however denies both claims. A spokesman told iTWire: "It's no secret that NEC has been engaged in discussions with the Tasmanian Government around its NBN ambitions, which we will continue to do. However, they are just discussions at this stage and there are certainly no agreements in place to establish a databank or server network, as has been reported."

He added: "We're keen to bid for involvement in Tasmania's NBN build-out as and when the tender process begins and hope that our global expertise and Australian R&D in FTTH broadband access technology will stand us in good stead."