[LINK] itNews: Turnbull's NBN policy escapes costing

[Roger Clarke]

[More smoke and mirrors from Turnbull.
[The worry is that he might actually believe the rhetoric he had to 
come up with after Abbott trapped him into the anti-NBN shadow 
ministry role.]


Turnbull's NBN policy 'detailed enough' to escape costing
Allie Coyne
Aug 16, 2013 6:34 AM (1 hour ago)
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/353616,turnbulls-nbn-policy-detailed-enough-to-escape-costing.aspx

Sees no value-add from independent financial analysis.

Opposition Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull believes the 
Coalition's NBN plan is detailed enough to warrant not pushing 
further for an independent assessment of costings and assumptions.

Turnbull told iTnews he had approached the Parliamentary Budget 
Office (PBO) to cost his party's alternative NBN plan before it was 
publicly announced on April 9.

But the PBO said it did not have the resources or expertise to cost 
the alternative NBN proposal in-house and would have had to outsource 
the work, which was seen as neither practical nor feasible.

Turnbull decided against pursuing the services of external financial 
consultants to perform an independent costing after being turned down 
by the PBO, believing it unnecessary.

"I don't know that a lot could have been added [to our policy] by 
going through an independent costings exercise," he said.

"I think the assumptions speak for themselves. I don't think there's 
anything in what we've assumed that is unrealistic."

He said the Coalition had provided enough detail in its policy 
documentation that third parties, such as the media, could analyse it 
for themselves.

Turnbull told iTnews the Coalition had put forward what was likely 
the most detailed communications policy ever from an opposition party 
but Labor NBN supporters were still not satisfied.

"We've said if we get elected we're going to do a bunch of things 
Labor hasn't done," he said.

"We are going to do a rigorous analysis, we will get Infrastructure 
Australia to do an independent cost benefit analysis. That's all set 
out in our policy.
"We've set it out in considerable detail."

The PBO, established in July 2012, is the only government agency 
available to the Coalition for costings. 

The Coalition had submitted around 200 of its policies to the PBO for 
costing prior to the announcement of the September federal election, 
and was now having them re-costed, Opposition Treasurer Joe Hockey 
said yesterday.

The Coalition's plan favours a fibre-to-the-node network over Labor's 
fibre-to-the-premise rollout, and promises to connect 71 percent of 
Australian premises to an FTTN network and 22 percent of homes and 
businesses to FTTP at a cost of $29.5 billion by 2019. 

Labor's NBN will cost $37.4 billion until 2021 and will offer a fibre 
connection to the premise for 93 percent of homes and businesses. 

Turnbull has recently indicated the Coalition would consider rolling 
out more FTTP "if the price is right".

Communications Minister Anthony Albanese this week on Lateline said 
financial services firm KMPG had audited NBN Co's corporate plan in 
2010 and found "in terms of the timelines and the costings, that all 
the assumptions were good."


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University