Victorian Government bells the cat on NBN failure to deliver for regional Australia

June 29, 2011

The Victorian Government has lifted the lid on how Labor’s National Broadband Network will fail to deliver improved broadband services in regional areas, Shadow Minister for Regional Communications Luke Hartsuyker said today.

In a submission to a federal inquiry into the National Broadband Network, the Victorian Government raised concerns the NBN would duplicate services already available in metropolitan areas whilst ignoring broadband blackspots in regional areas.

“Less than a week after NBN Co’s multi billion dollar deals to buy Telstra and Optus customers the failure of Federal Labor’s management of broadband policy is being exposed for all to see," Mr Hartsuyker said.   "If you are going to spend $50 billion on broadband, common sense says you should invest immediately in under-serviced areas, particularly in the regions.   Instead, we have Minister Conroy and the Gillard Government using taxpayer’s money to duplicate networks in metropolitan areas already capable of providing high-speed broadband to households and businesses.

“The details of deals with Telstra and Optus last week demonstrate the waste and absurdity of the Government’s NBN plan.  The Gillard Government will pay the two telcos billions of taxpayer’s dollars to transfer existing broadband customers to the NBN.  Optus has HFC cable which passes 1.4 million homes in metropolitan Australia and is already capable of providing speeds of 100 megabits per second. The Government is paying Optus $800 million – or $1600 per customer - of taxpayer’s money to switch over 500,000 broadband users to the NBN. And those same taxpayers will now end up paying more for their broadband. Telstra has HFC cable passing 2.5 million premises.

“This is all to prop up the financial return of NBNCo, which will not be profitable unless it can shut down competition and acquire customers already receiving high speed broadband.  As the Victorian Government points out, a more responsible way would be to target the blackspot areas first and improve their services to deliver immediate benefits to regional communities and the businesses they rely on.  The Coalition Government’s OPEL scheme would have ensured that 99 per cent of Australians received peak broadband speeds of at least 12 mbps by 30 June 2009. Labor scrapped the scheme in 2008 and since then regional telecommunications has been stuck in a vacuum.”

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