Funds wrangle hits NBN rollout
Funds wrangle hits NBN rollout
Mitchell Bingemann | July 07, 2009
THE spearhead of the federal government's $43 billion national broadband project appears to have been blunted as the likelihood of construction starting in Tasmania this month slips away while government costing negotiations drag on.
When the government announced on April 7 it would scrap the original national broadband network tender and replace it with a state-owned enterprise that would construct a fibre-to-the-home network, Tasmanian residents were tipped to be the first to get a taste of the new super-fast network.
At the time, federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said negotiations had begun between the federal and Tasmanian governments and a construction timeline would soon be finalised.
Although negotiations were expected to be finalised in the months after the April announcement, the government said construction of the network would begin this month through the state government-owned power utility, Aurora Energy.
Politically, it was a smart move. Despite its small and compact geography, Tasmania has the lowest percentage of broadband coverage in Australia, at about 38 per cent, and was seen as the perfect testbed for the ambitious national rollout.
But three months later Tasmanians are still twiddling their thumbs while the government continues to drag its feet in negotiations with Aurora and the state government.
It would seem that NBN is not exactly about doing things 'fast'. Wasting literally millions of dollars on a process that cost all Australians equally millions of wasted dollars.
Wake up! This Government is NOT intent on providing quality service - just more spin! What was deemed as "our future" will simply go on being the funding black-hole it started out to be.
Let's not hold our breath for super-fast-internet provision! Oh wait, don't we already have broadband? Oh that's right! YES! Stop wasting MY taxpayer dollars KRudd!
Sylvestor
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