25/07
Thursday 22 March 2007
Labor’s broadband dreaming
Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Senator Helen Coonan said today that Labor’s broadband proposal is one of the greatest policy con jobs since the infamous ‘Noodle Nation’.
“Labor’s proposal is a thinly detailed, poorly costed and essentially undeliverable proposal to lay fibre end to end across Australia,” Senator Coonan said.
“Mr Rudd’s broadband document is 22 pages long yet only one page has any semblance of information on their plan’s specifics and even then, it lacks a single costing table, map or proper technical specification.
“For an $8 billion ‘smash and grab’ from Australia’s Future Fund, the taxpayer deserves something better than a hastily cobbled together piece of flawed economics that even their Shadow Communications Spokesman, Senator Conroy said, kept him up late 48 hours before yesterday’s launch.
“This isn’t a high school exam cramming session. This is a trillion dollar national economy and if Labor think they can run it with a few late nights work and a ‘back of envelope’ costing for a multi-billion telecommunications proposal, then the Australian public are on notice that Labor is incapable of prudent economic management,” Senator Coonan said.
Senator Coonan said that international experience has shown that fibre networks require tens of billions of dollars of investment, even in countries a fraction of the size of Australia.
“In South Korea, a country less than half the size of Victoria, the cost of a fibre network was in excess of $AUD 50 billion dollars, yet in December 2005, fibre connections accounted for just 14 per cent of South Korea’s total residential broadband subscriptions despite the ubiquity of access to the fibre network,” Senator Coonan said.
“In the case of Singapore, a country with a landmass half the size of Sydney (660 sq km), the fibre rollout cost over $AUD 5 billion.
“Does Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party really expect the public to swallow its claim that it can cover over 7 million additional square kilometres than in Singapore, with only $3 billion dollars more? It is a ludicrous proposition.
“Labor’s costings are flawed, undeliverable and do not stack up against international comparisons.
“But it is not just international comparisons that highlight the unrealistic economics behind Labor’s plan, even Telstra’s own numbers throw out Mr Rudd’s $8 billion plan as undeliverable.
“Mr Bill Scales, Telstra's former Group General Manager for Corporate Relations, reported in evidence at a Senate Estimates hearing in 2005 that ‘at the very least, it [fibre broadband rollout] requires literally tens of billions [of dollars] of investment,” Senator Coonan said.
“The gaping holes in Labor’s costings have already caused an embarrassing back-flip.
“Just hours after delivering Labor’s $8 billion plan in a media conference in Canberra, Senator Conroy admitted that the figure had already risen to $9 billion dollars.
Senator Coonan said in an interview on Sydney radio with Steve Price yesterday, Stephen Conroy lifted Labor’s costing by one billion dollars in less than four hours.
PRICE: So we’re up around the ten billion mark…
CONROY: It’s about eight to nine billion. That will get 98 percent of Australians with a minimum of twelve megabits that takes you into the 21st century. – Radio 2UE Drive with Steve Price 21/03/07
“But even with its rising numbers, Labor’s costings are well short of what is realistically required to build a national fibre network and this is demonstrated in international comparisons and industry modelling,” Senator Coonan said.
“Clearly the Rudd Labor Leopard has not changed its spots.
“This is the Labor Party of old and their broadband announcement should be a clear warning to all Australians that Labor can’t be trusted to manage a trillion dollar economy and can’t be trusted to safeguard the nation’s savings,” Senator Coonan said.
“The Labor Party is intent on writing broadband cheques that they simply can’t cash without robbing the Future Fund.
“In the words of a senior institutional analyst, this is just ‘broadband dreaming’. And if the Australian public buys Labor’s false promises, it will be the start of their new economic nightmare.
“The Howard Government’s broadband plans are being delivered, fully costed and have ensured a fair and equitable access to broadband for over one million Australian households, regardless of where they live.”
Ends.