Turnbull is as vague as Labor when it comes to the NBN

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 16 September 2010 09:25

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

COMMENT New brooms generally sweep well. And given that the new broom under discussion here - the federal Australian Coalition's communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull - comes to the job with some experience in the internet business, his arguments against the NBN are more likely to be taken seriously.

 

But he is as much lacking in detail as Labor when he argues against the national broadband network, the plan conceived by the Labor government to deliver high-speed internet in Australia.

Briefly, as outlined by my colleague James Riley, Turnbull, in a media release, says that the lack of a business case, the lack of transparency in developing the business plan, the certainty that the plan is less valuable than its cost, and Labor's history of tardiness on delivering on such plans all go to show that the plan is impractical.

Turnbull comes to the position with some stripes - he was chairman of the pioneering ISP, OzEmail, which was bought in 2005 by the Perth-based iiNet. As a merchant banker, Turnbull bought a stake in OzEmail for $500,000 in 1994 and sold it for $57 million to WorldCom in 1999. While he can definitely talk intelligently about technology, it does not mean that he has the technical knowledge to judge between technologies.

On his first point, one would have to agree with Turnbull. There is no costing to account for the $43 billion figure that has been touted ever since the former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, announced the plan for a fibre-to-the-home network. And since then, there has been no indication at all how this figure was arrived at. Nobody knows, it is a big black hole.

The figleaf of a consultant's report - which cost about $25 million to obtain - agreeing with this $43 billion figure, and even saying the network would cost less, doesn't convince me. Consultants have a curious way of not biting the hand that feeds them. Pardon the cynicism, but I've met one too many consultants to think otherwise.