Renai LeMay
Wednesday, 08 September 2010 09:15
IT Policy - Government Tech Policy
The outspoken chief executive of internet service provider Exetel has issued a blunt reaction to the news that the National Broadband Network project is likely to go ahead: “God help us all”.
The revelation yesterday afternoon that rural independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor will support Labor to form government means the NBN is likely to go ahead, with both citing the flagship project as one of the key reasons they decided to support Labor above the Coalition. However Exetel’s John Linton – a long-time critic of the project – repeated his earlier problems with the project when asked for a response by email.
“Oakeshott and Windsor know even less about communications than Gillard and that’s a ridiculous way to decide on how taxpayer’s money is wasted,” he said.
The Exetel chief said nothing about the viability of the NBN project had changed, repeating the Coalition’s line that the project remained “a hugely expensive white elephant that will pauperise the Australian taxpayer every year the Labor Party pours borrowed money into it”.
Furthermore, Linton said, Australia would be poorer generally, and the local telco sector would “continue to be destroyed” because of the “pantomime” played out as the independents decided who they would vote for.
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