6 May 2016
Labor’s credibility on the National Broadband Network (NBN) has sunk to a new low.
Late on Wednesday night the Labor-initiated and controlled Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network tabled a six paragraph report without any findings or recommendations following more than two years of hearings.
During the two and a half years, the Committee conducted 20 separate hearings, took more than 100 hours of testimony, received 318 detailed responses to questions on notice, and accepted more than 100 submissions.
The chairman or senior executives of nbn were required to appear before the committee on 16 separate occasions. Yet not a single finding or recommendation has been made in the committee’s wafer-thin report.
Labor has bookended its involvement in the nbn with an ill-conceived and shambolic broadband policy devised on a drink coaster, and a multi-year committee inquiry which was notable only for its political game-playing.
The nbn is Australia’s largest and most complex infrastructure project. It will be a key facilitator for innovation in the nation.
It is disappointing the extraordinary achievements of NBN Co’s Board and management team have not been acknowledged by the Senate Select Committee in any detail.
Over little more than two years, the number of homes able to access the nbn network has grown from 288,000 premises, to more than two million homes in its national footprint. Similarly, customers connected to the built network stood at 51,000 when Labor lost Government in September 2013. Today there are close to 960,000 paying customers and annual revenues are around $300 million and growing.
Under Labor the NBN was a mess, and this report proves that Labor still can’t be trusted with the NBN.
The report is attached and can be found at http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/National_Broadband_Network/NBN/Final_Report.