Conroy caned over $30m NBN tender costs

James Riley
Thursday, 04 February 2010 17:08

IT Industry - Tenders

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has been accused of misleading the Senate over the progress of the original National Broadband Network RFP, a process that cost $30 million and was ultimately cancelled, having failed to deliver a value-for money provider.

Seizing on an Auditor-General's report into the NBN Request for Proposals process, the leader of the Opposition in the Senate Nick Minchin said the audit findings "exposed a complete and utter fiasco," sheeting the blame for its failure to Senator Conroy.

The Auditor-General found the total costs of the failed process was about $30 million, of which $17 million were taxpayer funds in the form of costs to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, and the rest incurred by private sector bidders.

Senator Minchin said the report found that it became concluded it had been clear early in the process that a non-Telstra bidder was unlikely to be able to build and operate an NBN, and that Government would be exposed to potentially billions in compensation claims from Telstra over the use of its assets.

He says Senator Conroy's claims in February last year that the RFP process was on track to sign contracts in March misled the Senate - that not only had Telstra been excluded from the RFP the previous December, but the department had identified other significant problems.

"He was '¦ saying that the government was confident of signing a contract in March, the following month, and yet he knew from his own department some six months beforehand that this whole process was completely failing," Senator Minchin said.