NBN Co board meets, sorts out Tassie offspring

James Riley
Thursday, 13 August 2009 08:27

Opinion and Analysis

At the top of the agenda when the newly-appointed NBN Company board meets in Canberra today – after a brief photo-op with the Minister at Parliament House – will be the composition of the Tasmania NBN Company board.

At present the Tasmania NBN Company exists in name alone. It has an executive chairman, Doug Campbell, who was appointed last month, but it is not yet even a $2 company. A quick search of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission database will tell you the Tasmania NBN Company name has been reserved, but no company has yet been registered.

This is a formality, of course. But it is an indicator of just how quickly things are now moving.

The NBN process has taken time to gather momentum. The wheels might have been spinning at full-throttle inside Stephen Conroy’s office and within the portfolio. But through the information black-hole of 2008 and early 2009 when the probity curtains were pulled around the original RFP process, movement was difficult to detect.

Two weeks ago we had a Prime Minister announce that a joint-venture with the Tasmanian Government and the utility firm Aurora would start digging holes to plant fibre all over the Apple Isle in six weeks from now – but the company has yet to be formed, its ownership structure is unknown, and its board of directors yet to be announced.

It is quite likely that the Tasmania NBN Company board will be announced later today. Perhaps then we will glean more of the shape that the NBN roll-out will take more broadly across Australia, and the kind of role that other state Government’s might play in the roll-out.

 If nothing else, the composition of the board in Tasmania will shine some light on the equity position of each of the JV partners – which will itself be an indicator of the value of the a utility companies involvement in the infrastructure roll-out.

For the first time, the newly-appointed NBN Company board is out in the open – albeit only for the purposes of a photo opportunity at Parliament House.

But they will conduct the first formal board meeting today – firing the starter’s pistol for the real work of building a national fibre network to begin.

We can only hope that the information flow of NBN-related activity from both the NBN Company and the communications portfolio’s political and departmental offices starts to match the frenetic pace of activity happening behind the scenes.