A year ago today, Malcolm Turnbull bought back the old copper network that John Howard sold last century. On the same day he also bought an old HFC network that Optus planned to decommission years ago.
12 months on it is very clear that these were both bad decisions made without proper due diligence.
Two weeks ago a leaked NBN Co internal document revealed that the cost of fixing up the old copper network to make it work has blown out by more than 1,000 per cent.
In December 2013 Malcolm Turnbull said the cost to repair the copper would be $55 million. This leaked document reveals it has now blown out to $641 million.
Most people don’t get promoted for blowing their budget by 1,000 percent, but Malcolm Turnbull has.
The same document also revealed the cost per home of Malcolm Turnbull’s second rate copper NBN has nearly tripled.
Three weeks ago another leaked NBN Co internal document revealed that the Optus HFC network that Malcolm Turnbull acquired 12 months ago today is not “fit for purpose” and NBN Co will need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fix it up or overbuild it.
After a bit over two years in charge of the NBN Malcolm Turnbull’s mismanagement of the NBN is now becoming very clear:
- The cost of the NBN has almost doubled – he promised he could build it for $29.5 billion, this has now blown out to $56 billion;
- The time it will take to build the NBN has also doubled – he promised everyone would have access to the NBN by the end of next year, this has now blown out to 2020; and
- Now the cost of fixing the copper he bought 12 months ago today has blown out by more than 1,000 per cent.
Malcolm Turnbull is pretty agile, but he can’t blame anybody else for this but himself.
These are his mistakes and his stuff ups. This is his mess.
For someone with experience in business he has badly mismanaged this important infrastructure project.
Worse still, the people of Australia will be left with a slower second rate NBN.
MEDIA CONTACT: Jamie Wassef 02 9790 2466
