Aussie opposition stands by plan to scrap fibre network

Australian federal opposition spokesman Tony Smith has hit back at criticism of the resurgent Liberal-National coalition's policy of scrapping Australia's proposed national broadband network.

Delivering his Budget reply speech, Opposition leader Tony Abbott made it clear that a Coalition government would abandon the network if it won the election, which must be held by next April.

"The Coalition won't go ahead with the national broadband network, avoiding the creation of a $43b white elephant," he said.

"Better access to faster broadband should not mean a new nationalised telecommunications monopoly and Telstra shareholders should not have their assets subject to coerced acquisition."

Others have warned that pulling the plug on the national broadband network (NBN) would be both a point of international embarrassment and have "disastrous" knock-on effects for the Australian economy.

Analyst Paul Budde said Australia had become an "international thought leader" in the field of broadband. "We are known for being a mining country and this project is building our credentials as a digital economy."

He said the Coalition would undoubtedly produce its own alternative broadband proliferation policy, but starting from scratch would set Australia back several years.

A poll conducted by Newspoll for The Australian this month put the Coalition ahead of the ruling Rudd administration.

Forty-three per cent of respondents said they would vote for the opposition coalition of Liberals and National, up three points since mid-April. The Labor Party was second with 35 per cent, followed by the Greens with 10 per cent. Australia's preferential voting system – where electors indicate an order of preference for each contender and the ballots from smaller parties are redistributed – gave the Coalition a two-point lead over Labor, the newspaper reported.

The head of the company set up to deliver the fibre network, NBN joint chief executive Mike Quigley, said he did not expect any change of government to affect the company and a Coalition win was not something he was spending any time worrying about.

"People are so busy getting on with the job they are simply not worrying about it.

"Nobody in the company is sitting around worrying what would happen in such an eventuality."

A long-awaited implementation study into the NBN has received a mixed response.

Intel Australia managing director Paul O'Sullivan said the debate should move past whether the NBN should be created to one about how to use broadband to make Australia more competitive. Mr Smith said the study made it clear the network required massive taxpayer assistance and "massive regulatory assistance to try to prop it up".

"In reality it will be hopelessly uneconomic, will not be delivered in any reasonable time and it should be abandoned before any more money is squandered," he said.

- with AFR

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