Regional ratepayers to be slugged for Labor’s mismanagement of National Broadband Network

June 22, 2011

Ratepayers in regional Australia are being asked to foot the bill for Federal Labor’s abysmal planning of the National Broadband Network, Shadow Minister for Regional Communications Luke Hartsuyker said today.

Mr Hartsuyker said Regional Development Australia (RDA), which was established by Federal Labor, is now approaching local councils seeking funds to ‘capture and map’ 3G wireless coverage in regional areas.  In a letter to councils, RDA claims funds from council will assist regions to secure future NBN Co investment.

“This is nothing more than more cost-shifting onto local government,” Mr Hartsuyker said.  “Trying to penny-pinch funding from local councils just shows how the management of the NBN has become a debacle.  This is work which clearly should have been completed before the project was approved. However, instead of completing the research themselves, the Government now expects council ratepayers to contribute financially towards the cost of identifying telecommunication black spots in regional areas.

“It’s not happening in metropolitan areas so why should Labor be slugging regional residents simply because of the Government’s gross mismanagement of the NBN rollout.”

Mr Hartsuyker said the fact that RDA was seeking financial contributions of between $5,000 and $10,000 from each council, highlights how fragile the NBN business case is.  “Each day the NBN suffers another financial setback and there is genuine concern the cost blow outs will see future generations saddled with billions of dollars of repayments.  The fact that RDA is now doing NBN Co’s heavy lifting by going cap-in-hand to local government smacks of desperation. It shows how out of touch Labor is with regional Australia when they quite happily agree to splurge $50 billion on the NBN but they expect councils to pay for the research.

“Since Federal Labor was elected in 2007 we have had four years of inertia regarding addressing telecommunications black spots in regional areas.  Now we find out that NBN Co has not even completed the research to identify those areas where services are not up-to-scratch.”

< Prev		Next >