NBN Tassie roll-out 'a shambles': Coalition

James Riley
Tuesday, 09 November 2010 17:10

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The Federal Government's failure to consumate its planned NBN Tasmania joint-venture with the Tasmania Government and the state-owned utility Aurora Energy demonstrated the state's National Broadband Network roll-out was a shambles, Liberal Senator Guy Barnett says.

The reluctance of either Aurora or the State's Labor Government to become equity partners in NBN Tasmania Company - which was announced more than a year ago as a joint-venture - highlighted concerns about the financial viability of the NBN project, Senator Barnett said.

Shadow communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says the unravelling of the joint-venture plan was "the latest example of the rushed and unconsidered approach the Gillard Government is taking to the building of a national broadband network."

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's office today confirmed the NBN Tasmania Company joint-venture would not proceed. Aurora would continue to be deeply involved in the state's NBN roll-out, but as a contractor under standard commercial arrangements rather than as an equity partner in the company.

The NBN Tasmania Company was established in August last year, with a separate board and separate management from the broader NBN Company. The company is a wholl-owned subsidiary of NBN Company, butwas always intended to be a three-way venture between the Commonwealth, Aurora and the Tasmanian Government.

Senator Conroy said as recently as the middle of last month at a Senate Estimates hearing that he would be meeting Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett to further the joint-venture discussions. He says the work on the NBN Tasmania roll-out has continued unaffected by the ownership struicture of the roll-out company.

Tasmanian senator Guy Barnett says the failure to negotiate the joint-venture "confirms the Government never had a business plan in place at all."

"It confirms the roll-out of the NBN in Tasmania has been a shambles and one must now question the commercial viability of the rollout in Tasmania," Senator Barnett said.

"The Government says that the NBN rolloput in Tasmania is on time and budget. But we know that to be a farce and, in fact, nonsensical. It's nonsensical because they refuse to reveal what the budget is (for the roll-out.)

Mr Turnbull renewed Coalition calls for Government to conduct a full cost-benefit analysis of the NBN project.

"The unravelling of the joint venture between the NBN Co and the Tasmanian Government's Aurora Energy is the latest example of the rushed and unconsidered approach the Gillard Government is taking to the building of a national broadband network," Mr Turnbull said.

"Yesterday we learned of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of telecommunications infrastructure being overbuilt, and therefore rendered redundant, by the NBN. Today we see their first business venture, and that with another Labor Government, fall in a heap," he said.

"Build it and they will come" and "make it up as we go along" are no substitute for a rigorous cost-benefit analysis which would carefully weigh up the different options for achieving the national goal of universal affordable broadband and provide assurance that Australians would receive real value for whatever level of Government subsidy was required to achieve that goal."