Liberal Party: Conroy’s ‘Request for Policy’ plea

The accompanying trifecta of 'Friday specials' media releases aimed at masking the confusion surrounding a National Broadband Network has a name but little else. These media statements inviting proposals, ideas and submissions on the Network, regulatory framework and the response to underserviced remote and regional areas amount to an "S.O.S. call - 'Save Our Stephen'", claimed Billson.

The political headline hunting spin that commits the Rudd Labor Government to delivering fibre to the node or fibre to the home broadband to 98 percent of premises across Australia, has simply been 'topped and tailed' with bureaucratic tender-speak to form a 'request for proposal' document that says more about what is not known than what is, he said.

“Page after page talks about what is yet to be resolved as the commercially-naive Conroy hopes for a Telco tooth fairy to stump up billions for a broadband plan Labor can call its own, at a time of growing doubt about Labor's ability to get such a project off the ground in a self-inflicted timeframe experts have characterised as 'dreaming',” said Billson.

Senator Billson claimed that at last there is a belated recognition by Senator Conroy that beyond the infrastructure build confusion is a nightmare of regulatory, access, competition and pricing considerations that are the bed rock of any centrally-directed broadband investment in a fair and competitive market. However he said: “Only the most cavalier would commit substantial resources and expertise to a poorly defined venture where the 'rules of engagement' are not at all clear or settled. “

“Labor's 'flip flop' on a requirement for there to be a commercial return for the taxpayer investment of up to $4.7 billion is still leaving many scratching their heads – if a commercial return was assured, the project would be viable and the private sector would be willing to invest,” he said. “To put it bluntly this whole process is an absolute mess. Many within the sector have privately labelled Senator Conroy’s simplistic objective of delivering fibre to the node or to the home to 98 percent of premises across Australia as fanciful.”

According to Billson, duplicating metro services is the easy part, but the cost of rolling out fibre to the many communities in rural and remote Australia with under 1000 people are astronomically expensive. But that is exactly what must happen if Senator Conroy is to deliver on Labor's election promise.

“In a separate release Senator Conroy has confirmed he had absolutely no alternative plan to the OPEL wireless network, which would have provided metro-like, higher speed broadband to about 900,000 underserved premises across rural, regional and remote Australia by mid 2009,” he said.

conroys for liberal mobility party plea policy request