NBN committee paralysed by party politics

The Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network (JCNBN) has produced its fourth and penultimate report with scathing criticism of the committee from chairman Rob Oakeshott.

His comments show just how extremely politicised the NBN has become. Oakeshott reported in his foreword - which appears to have been written before prime minister Julia Gillard named 14 September as the election date - "Several months of disagreement between committee members on some very basic points in this report … have seen the report delivered later than planned.

"The tradition of committee membership in Australian political culture is that adversarial politics is left at the door. It is a concern to many that this culture is showing signs of changing on this committee, where sensitivities of our oversight work as compared to political party election platforms has made the work of the committee much more difficult than it need be."

He concluded: "This is an early warning sign that the topic of higher speed broadband technology is likely to feature strongly in political debate throughout 2013, an election year."

Two months into the year and one month into the election campaign this is very clearly the case, but this should come as no surprise to Oakeshott, or anyone else who has followed the issue. The NBN has been high on the political agenda ever since the Mark 1 (FTTN version) was unveiled by Labor ahead of the 2007 election, highlighting the Coalition's inability to articulate a coherent policy for broadbanding Australia.

The committee is due to produce its final report in July/August, but Oakeshott has little confidence it will be able to do so.

"I am not confident that the focus of the committee is an oversight of an existing build under the existing shareholder ministers arrangements. Instead, I think the committee has become somewhat stuck on a policy dispute between different build options, and will only deepen divisions on this in the pre-election period. … There is every chance the next report will be nothing more than a compendium of political statements and election promises."

There was little evidence of this politicisation in the dissenting report from Coalition committee members: most of their comments and recommendations focussed on the way NBN Co is currently operating.

However one comment was seized on by communications minister Stephen Conroy and used to "confirm" that the Coalition plans to demolish the NBN. The dissenting report said that the benefits of changing contract terms in the lead up to the September14 election needed to be clearly articulated by NBN Co and that NBN Co and its board should be clearly mindful of the possibility of a change of Government and the need to alter contracts down the track.

"This clearly demonstrates that the Coalition plans to demolish the NBN if it is elected," Conroy claimed.

Demolition is clearly not on the cards. Where fibre has been installed it will be used, and much of the infrastructure in which NBN Co has invested and is investing will still be needed to carry traffic to and from whatever bits of equipment are used on the last mile. Only maintaining the status quo with multiple DSLAM operators using Telstra's access network would constitute demolition of the NBN.

That would be the worst possible outcome: a new Coalition Government that gets so bogged down in trying to unravel Labor's NBN and implementing an alternative that another electoral term passes with little or no progress.

No matter who wins the next election one aspect of the NBN won't change: the level of debate, the polarised opinions, the half-truths and outright falsehoods peddled to promote one version and to condemn others.

Regardless of Coalition claims that it will be able to bring acceptably fast broadband to more people sooner than the NBN, it won't simply be a matter of going out and building it. There will be new arrangements to be negotiated with Telstra. Due process will have to be followed. The ACCC will be involved. Public enquiries will be needed, and the ALP, with its NBN ambitions thwarted will do everything it can to keep the NBN issue front of mind with the electorate.

This article first appeared on iTWire, Australia's leading independent IT&T news and information source.