Published on the 27/06/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
The leadership switch which has replaced Julia Gillard with Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister has also stripped the National Broadband Network of its two fiercest supporters…
Senator Stephen Conroy, who championed the National Broadband Network from its inception has stepped aside from his role as communications minister, while Julia Gillard has signalled her intention to quit politics following a leadership change on Tuesday night. While this signals massive change for the nation – for the National Broadband Network and NBN Co it’s business as usual.
Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde notes that while Conroy’s support for the NBN will be missed, “With contracts in place for NBN connections for approximately half of the population, the future of the NBN is safe. The Coalition has also warmed to the plan and there is now bipartisan support for the NBN.”
The NBN has been designed to deliver speeds of up to 100 Mbps to 93 percent of the Australian population by 2021 using fibre, wireless and satellite services. In its latest planning update NBN Co said that there are 4.85 million premises which will have construction underway or where services can be ordered by June 2016.
At the time of writing it remains unclear who will take over the communications portfolio for Labor, or when an election will be held. Senator Conroy’s role as leader of Labor in the Senate has been taken over by Penny Wong, but new leader Kevin Rudd has yet to signal who he favours for the communications portfolio.
There is also uncertainty as to when the Federal election will be held. Originally slated for September, there are now indications that the election could be called at any time between August 3 and late October.
Polling in the lead-up to the Labor leadership spill on Tuesday night indicated that the Labor Government was likely to be replaced by the Coalition at the next election, which would place NBN Co and its network under the control of opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull. He has backed away from any suggestion that the NBN would be dismantled by a Coalition government, but has pledged to test the NBN with a full cost benefit analysis if elected to government and signalled that he favours reducing the government’s investment in the NBN to deliver fibre to the node, rather than fibre to the home – what commentators refer to as NBN-Lite.
Although way behind its original roll-out schedule and plagued by problems including most recently an asbestos debacle where sub contractors failed to properly deal with Telstra’s asbestos lined pits, NBN Co is a fully fledged organisation unlikely to be easily rent asunder by a change either of minister or government.
