Two doyens of economic reform say taxpayers are set to lose billions of dollars on the National Broadband Network.

Inaugural Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks and top Keating government competition adviser Fred Hilmer said the $49 billion government-funded NBN was likely to be sold at a loss. “Like the Collins class and the new French subs, essentially, we’re seeing taxpayers just throwing away tens of billions … it will be interesting to see how many are wasted on the NBN,” Professor Banks said.

Professor Hilmer added: “It will probably be sold at a bargain price with the commonwealth taking a hit and blaming its predecessors. What matters is whether government protects it from competition with regulation; they shouldn’t. It might be a natural monopoly in Bourke, it’s certainly not in Sydney or Melbourne.” 

The pair spoke exclusively to The Australian at a roundtable ­organised by Brendan Lyon, the outgoing head of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia. All said state and federal infrastructure watchdogs, such as Infrastructure Australia federally, needed more teeth and money to call out boondoggles.“

Turnbull when he was appointed by Abbott as Communications minister should have stopped it.

Instead of paying billions to Telstra and Singtel not to compete .

The Future is mobile and will be provided by Private Enterprise not a Govt  Monopoly.

Strange post from somebody who has blue blood running through his veins.

There are indeed good, bad and indifferent governments but the underlying theme which is getting louder and louder is that big business controls and/or moderates all governments.

One thing for sure and that is that this one has used its capital and only fools can believe anything which comes out of their mouths.  Bill might be a dill but in the absence of Independents en mass he may be the best of a bad lot.  Time to throw out the rotting corpse which has both deceived us and betrayed the nation!

Was away yesterday, so might be too late to comment on this post, but here goes, I have asked the question before and to date still haven't recieved an answer, when Labor first released the news about the NBN, the budget for a far superior system was $33 billion, to date this inferior system has cost $49 billion and is nowhere near finished, so is it a case of a totally inept government and an equally inept NBN provider who would have most likely been the same provider under a labor government because I wouldn't imagine there are too many companies around with the expertise to build such a large project in Australia, or is it the more believable cause, a totally under budgeted idea by the Labor party? I agree with some of the comments from the post, we have had some very good leaders in the past, with probably the best of them being Hawke and Keating, but to even suggest Bill Shorten as Leader sends shivers down my spine, him and the looney greens will send us broke in quick time, I think most genuine Labor voters would agree, but there are some who will vote Labor no matter who is leading them, and the same could be said about some Libs voters.

Soi

JUL 5, 2017

What and where in the name of the living God are we doing and where are we going? Supposed to be the Lucky Country blessed with abundant energy resources and we have politically driven and expensive disasters like the NBN,RET,AHRC, a tax on a specifically named number of companies in a specific industry  (bank tax) , the closing down of secure energy out put base load power stations, sequestration of natural resources by the banning of gas exploration, awarding of a questionable $50 Billion French submarine contract to that basket case of a a failed Socialist experiment, South Australia, where electricity power can't be guaranteed, and an anti development attitude -all created or substantially contributed to by Federal and State Governments of both persuasions and dare I say a public who don't know the value of a hard days work and who would rather get something for nothing. The future is bleak.

Governments should never get involved with Business .

We should have left Private Enterprise compete to provide the best technology for internet connection .

If we wanted to subsidise the Bush ( read Multi national Agra business and Miners ) under pressure from the Nationals we should be honest and do that . 

The majority of Australians live in Urban areas let Private Enterprise compete with the latest technology .

As with Electricity supply the State run power companies gold plated the power supply network to lower the divends being demanded by State Governments . This now has to be paid for by higher prices to consumers which along with subsidies to renewables is the cause of our triple the cost of electricity co pared to US .

Civil servants don’t have to produce a profit so will never offer the most efficient service . 

Who in their right mind would pay billions to Telstra and Singtel not to compete so the Gvernment had a monopoly which once again results in higher prices and slower speeds than the US competitive model .

when will we ever learn that Socialism does not work.