Government to audit Labor's NBN decisions

Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull has ordered yet another audit into the NBN project, this time focusing on the advice and processes that led to Labor's development of its NBN policy.

Some commentators have described the audit as a “witch hunt”, and Labor has asserted that this and the other NBN reviews are distracting from the process of actually building the NBN.

The audit, the fifth since Turnbull took office in September, will cover the period from April 2008 to May 2010. This interval covers the period between the Rudd administration’s request for proposals for an NBN solution, through to the time the implementation study for the NBN was released.

It will focus on the origin of the decision to mandate fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) for at least 90% of the rollout, the approach taken by Labor in terms of cost-benefit analysis and independent reviews of the project, as well as the advice that led to the establishment of NBN Co.

The audit will also provide recommendations on future public policy actions governments should take when deciding on the development or reform on major projects such as the NBN.

Turnbull has appointed former Telstra managing director Bill Scales to conduct the audit. Scales is currently chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology, and has held roles including chairman of the erstwhile Industry Commission and secretary of Victoria's Department of Premier and Cabinet. 

Turnbull has given Scales four months to conduct the audit and report back to the government.

The announcement of the review from Turnbull’s office states that it will “access legally available information. These enquiries and the information provided will necessarily be constrained as the terms of reference raise matters where access to information is restricted.”

The government drew criticism from the opposition last month when it emerged that Tony Abbott had handed over cabinet-in-confidence documents from the previous Labor government to the royal commission into the home insulation scheme.

The statement adds that the audit is in addition to a review of NBN Co’s internal corporate government that is being conducted by advisory and investment firm KordaMentha.

Labor has accused Turnbull of using the audit and other reviews as a smokescreen. In a statement to Fairfax Media, senator Stephen Conroy said it’s time Turnbull “stopped using these distractions to hide the shambles of his own plans and just got on with building the network.” Shadow communications minister Jason Clare added that Turnbull seems “to have an unhealthy obsession [with Conroy and] with fighting old wars.”

ITWire’s Graeme Philipson described the audit as being “after Conroy’s blood,” stating that the review “is seen by many as a political witch hunt designed primarily to embarrass the ALP”.

Delimiter’s Renai LeMay commented that the audit appears to be a case of playing politics.“I don’t have a problem with projects being audited. But auditing Labor’s policy development process? That’s just politics,” he wrote.

“By opening an inquiry into Labor’s NBN policy development process, Turnbull is virtually inviting Labor to do the same to his own processes ... whenever the Coalition loses power. One would hardly call the development of the Coalition’s own broadband policy, which has changed regularly as and when Turnbull personally sees fit, to be the most legitimate and well-researched process.”

NBN Co announced last month that it had started the process of renegotiating its deal with Telstra and taking other steps aimed at transitioning to a multitechnology NBN rollout model by 2015. As part of the new arrangements, the company plans to use Telstra’s network to conduct trials of NBN delivery through technologies including fibre-to-the-building and fibre-to-the-node.