Tag Archives: NBN

Barnaby: The Big NBN Con

22 Dec

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 22 December 2011:

The Regional NBN spin, The NBN reality, The Big Con

Senator Conroy stated on 7th September that “the NBN will provide a massive economic boost for the Australian economy, particularly in regional and remote communities.”

Well if you are looking for remote Julia Creek with a population of 500 between Mt Isa and Townsville as your piece de resistance and the Labor Party’s NBN goes right under the town. Surely Senator Conroy would be mugged by logic and lobbied by his regional advocates, Windsor, Oakeshott and Co., to connect to J. C. for Christmas. The town even has the same first name as your boss Stephen! Nope – they bypassed logic and left Julia Creek just as they found it, waiting for wireless, with the vision of Windsor, Gillard and Conroy pushing the big regional telecommunications button in Armidale burning in their retina.

The stoic remote town of Julia Creek, because it has a population of 500, does not qualify for the fibre optic service, even though it runs right under the town. The amazing vision of the Labor Party.

The council has been told by NBN Co that it will cost them $1.14 million to connect and they should just wait for the wireless service.

But why is it that the Town of 1770 with a population of just 80 does qualify for the fibre connection? Why are 30 other towns, many with much less than the magic 500 population figure, getting access to the fibre optic service?

Senator Conroy also said “One of the great benefits provided by the NBN to rural communities will be important eHealth services that will mean people, especially the elderly, will be able to access high end medical support in their own homes and not have to travel great distances to large cities.”

Apparently not if you live in Julia Creek even though the optic fibre cable is just beneath them, so close, as they say, if it was a black snake it would bite you. So what was the point in making all those wonderful promises, only to deny people access when the cable turns up?

It is starting to look like a big con Stephen. There is not much point to a railway line without railway stations.

More information – Matthew Canavan 0458 709433

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Barnaby: “Labor And Mr Windsor Take Us All As Mugs”

26 May

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 26 May 2011:

Albo takes Independents for a ride

Mr John Fullerton, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Rail Track Corporation, has unfortunately delivered the clear position of the Labor Government with their perennial announcement and sugar cube to Mr Windsor on the Inland Rail.

Mr Albanese stated in his media release of 10 May 2011 that the Inland Rail was “finally out of the station.” Mr Windsor was part of the game as an able Labor Lieutenant stating in his media release of the same date that the “Inland Rail builds up head of steam”.

Contradicting this rhetoric, Mr Fullerton stated to me in Estimates today that the inland rail was not their priority.

Senator Joyce: I notice you’ve got $300 million put aside [for the Inland Rail], but that’s not actually building anything is it? That’s just design work. When are we actually going to start building something there?

Mr Fullerton: On the inland route?

Senator Joyce: Yes

Mr Fullerton: Well we conducted a study last year that determined that that wasn’t yet economic. Our priority at the moment is to build a coastal route …

It is not only that they are taking Australia for a ride on this crucial piece of infrastructure between Melbourne and Brisbane, and ultimately Gladstone, but it shows how Labor and Mr Windsor take us all as mugs.

Just like the announcement for the NBN in Armidale where they pushed the button with an explosion of light and wonder when in fact there were only seven (7) customers, and even some of them had been connected for weeks. It was fake Julia with fake friends at the very expensive deceptive ceremony to push the nonsensical fake button.

Whether it is railway lines or telephone lines or lines of credit or their lines at the doors in the morning just remember they think you’re a mug and they are taking you for a ride.

More Information – Matthew Canavan 0458 709433

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Turnbull Warns Of NBN “Charade”: Costs Kept “Off The Books”

13 May

The black hole keeps getting bigger.

Labor continues its practice of fiddling the books, to cover up its economic mismanagement.

From Delimiter:

Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has labelled the Federal Government’s continued approach of keeping the cost of building its flagship National Broadband Network project off the annual budget books a “charade”, in the wake of early take-up figures of the network’s services which the Coalition views as being less than expected.

In the budget papers released on Tuesday night, the Government provided further detail about how it would inject equity funding into the NBN project, allocating $18.2 billion in equity injections to NBN co over the proceeding years up until the 2014-15 financial year. The payments are instalments towards the Government’s total equity contribution to the NBN, which is expected to be $27.5 billion.

However, in a statement released tonight as part of the Coalition’s budget response, Turnbull said the Government had continued its “charade” in the budget papers of “keeping the entire cost of this needlessly expensive, excessively risky, anti-competitive project off the books”.

The Government, Turnbull said, assumed the NBN could be kept off-Budget because it would generate a commercial return, making the NBN worth not less than the cost of its initial investment.

“But eight months after the first sites were turned on in Tasmania, expectations of strong early revenues are looking overly optimistic,” the Member for Wentworth said, claiming that only eleven percent of households in Tasmania who had access to the NBN had signed up for services so far; less than predictions that 58 percent of households would by 2014-15 be purchasing services over the network and increasing their internet usage over today’s figures.

“The lacklustre performance metrics for the NBN so far bode ill for taxpayers,” Turnbull added. “The claim that the Government’s equity costs are limited to $27.5 billion (excluding $16 billion to be paid to Telstra) with the balance funded in debt is a very spurious one. There is no prospect of NBN being able to borrow on a no-recourse to the Government basis and so the NBN’s indebtedness will be just another category of Government debt. All of the NBN risk is with the Government.”

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Rudd Deserts Another Principle

7 May

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 6 May 2010:

“The release of the long-awaited NBN study today reveals that Prime Minister Rudd has deserted one more of his once closely-held principles,” Senator Barnaby Joyce, the Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Infrastructure and Water said today.

In the 2008-09 Budget the Government committed themselves to:

  • “Decision making based on rigorous cost-benefit analysis to ensure the highest economic and social benefits to the nation over the long term.”

But page two of the NBN implementation study explicitly states that it is not a “cost-benefit analysis of the macro-economic and social benefits.”

“The NBN study reveals another Labor broken promise,” Senator Joyce said today. “Two years ago Mr Rudd was talking up the benefits of establishing Infrastructure Australia and subjecting infrastructure investments to rigorous analysis. But on the biggest infrastructure project he has committed to he has deserted these principles, just as he has deserted the ETS.”

“Infrastructure Australia has been effectively gagged on the issue. Their public analysis has amounted to five paragraphs last year in ticking off on an investment of up to $4.7 billion from the Building Australia Fund. At almost $1 billion per paragraph, it wasn’t cheap advice. Minister Albanese, the Minister for Infrastructure, was missing in action.”

As Ken Henry, Secretary of the Treasury, stated last year:

  • “Government spending that does not pass an appropriately defined cost-benefit test necessarily detracts from Australia’s wellbeing. That is, when taxpayer funds are not put to their best use, Australia’s wellbeing is not as high as it otherwise could be.”

“Is it any wonder that this is a Government that has racked up $138 billion in debt and is continuing to borrow up to $2 billion a fortnight? Like much of this borrowing, the Government made its decision to spend $43 billion on the NBN in haste. In Senate Estimates last year it was revealed that NBN Mark II was conceived between Senator Conroy and the Prime Minister during two plane flights on Mr Rudd’s VIP jet” Senator Joyce said.

“The ‘back of the boarding pass’ approach to infrastructure selection must end. A Coalition Government will conduct and release cost-benefit analysis on infrastructure investments.”

More Information- Jenny Swan 07 46 251500

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