Page 4323 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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We have asked for the cost-benefit analysis. We have asked for the business plan. All around the country, experts have asked for these details. The federal opposition have asked for these details. I will go back to the Stephen Bartholomeusz article:
The government has committed to spending up to $43 billion of taxpayer funds, or whatever lesser or greater amount the NBN ultimately costs—
let us face it, we know the federal government’s record on delivering infrastructure, and we know the local government’s record on delivering infrastructure; it is never on time and on budget—
without any meaningful analysis of its costs and benefits.
How, in terms of good public policy, do you make up a sum—I assume the number is being just made up because nobody has been able to produce a document that supports $43 billion—without any meaningful analysis of its costs and benefits? A number of commentators have said that there probably are benefits in this, but let us quantify that. Let us have a discussion about that before we determine that this is the best way to save.
The Bartholomeusz article goes on to say:
The 546-page implementation study produced by McKinsey and KPMG earlier this year wasn’t a cost-benefit analysis—the firms explicitly said so in the introduction to their study. That study was a reverse-engineering exercise for a decision that had already been taken, and a rather unconvincing and rubbery one at that, built on ridiculously optimistic assessments of penetration and demand rates.
We know it is unrealistic, because AAPT have said that they have had to write off $900 million of the $1 billion they invested in laying fibre. Already the firms are writing off their investments.
I am in favour of fibre and I am in favour in broadband networks. I know I will be misrepresented by the end of this speech, Mr Speaker. But our proof of that is in the pudding where we set up TransACT so that people in the ACT could get high speed services. AAPT has an enormous amount of underutilised fibre, and there are two HCF networks, a copper network and multiple increasingly high speed wireless brand board networks already in Australia, and Ms Le Couteur knows this.
The article says:
AAPT itself has 24 strands of fibre running along the eastern seaboard – but uses only two because of the lack of demand. It has written off $900 million of the $1 billion it invested in laying that fibre. Most businesses in urban Australia either have fibre or access to it if they are prepared to pay for it, as do most schools, hospitals and government departments.
The article then questions why duplicate strand and make redundant and devalue existing infrastructure that is capable of delivering profitable and fast enough services
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