FED: Doubts remain over Labor's broadband promise: Opposition
By Karlis Salna31 Mar 2009 2:31 PM
Subject: FED: Doubts remain over Labor's broadband promise: Opposition FED: Doubts remain over Labor's broadband promise: Opposition
CANBERRA, March 31 AAP - The federal government has rejected opposition claims there's doubt among key players in the telecommunications industry over its ability to deliver a high-speed national broadband network.
The federal government is expected to announce a preferred tenderer for the multi-billion dollar project next week after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd returns from the G20 summit in London.
The project has been described as the biggest infrastructure undertaking in Australia since the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electricity Scheme.
It will provide a major boost to economic growth and jobs at a time when the economy has ground to a halt under the weight of the global financial crisis.
But opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin says huge doubts remain over whether Labor can deliver on its 2007 election pledge to roll out a fibre-to-the-node network to 98 per cent of Australian homes and businesses.
"The bidders themselves have said this is neither viable nor realistic," Senator Minchin told a key industry conference in Sydney on Tuesday.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, speaking at the same conference, said the government stood by its broadband plan.
"What should be clear is that the government stands 100 per cent behind to its election commitment to deliver a national broadband network," Senator Conroy said.
"It is therefore imperative and only right that the government give this decision the full attention, scrutiny and care that it deserves.
"I can confirm that the government is now in the final stages of preparing its announcement and I expect to be able to provide much more detail on this important event in the days to come."
However, Senator Minchin said Acacia, one of the companies in the race to build the network, did not even cost the project because it knew it would be too expensive.
The price tag for the national broadband network has been put at more than $15 billion. The federal government will provide up to $4.7 billion of taxpayers' money.
Senator Minchin said there were also serious questions about how the project would be financed.
"Labor has said it expects a commercial return on its investment, but has been unable to detail how this will be achieved," he said.
"A fundamental flaw in Labor's approach has been its failure to conduct any form of credible cost-benefit analysis, which is extraordinary considering the scale of this planned spend."
Senator Minchin said the opposition stood ready to vigorously test the integrity and viability of any preferred proposal the Rudd government might announce.
"The devil will of course be in the detail and the coalition has a long list of crucial questions that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will have to answer before anything he puts forward can be taken seriously," he said.
"Announcing a preferred tenderer is comparatively the easy part, yet approaching 18 months since the election, Senator Conroy has not even managed to do that, despite all his grand broadband promises when in opposition."
He said Labor would also need to outline in great detail the regulatory regime it planned to put in place, including access and pricing terms.
The company that eventually wins the rights to the project will need to access Telstra's existing infrastructure, a proposition the telco giant is set to oppose.
Australia's largest telco was excluded from the national broadband network tender process after lodging a bid that fell short of the government's stated objectives.
Delays in the tender process mean construction of the network, which was supposed to have commenced by the end of last year, will likely not begin until the end of this year.
AAP kms/tnf =0A
FED: Doubts remain over Labor's broadband promise: Opposition