Fact check: 500k houses were not cut from NBN

125

truth

news Fact-checking website PolitiFact Australia has flatly rejected a claim by the Australian Labor Party that the Coalition has “cut” some 500,000 houses from the National Broadband Network project, finding that the Coalition had only changed the metrics by which the rollout was measured, not the rollout itself.

In late October, NBN Co radically altered its network rollout map. Many areas around Australia which had been marked to receive NBN infrastructure over the next several years had their areas removed from the map.

The changes took place because NBN Co changed its metrics. Previously, NBN Co had used a metric which referred to the fact that initial work on designing the NBN rollout in certain areas had commenced. This included, in many cases, work on paper that took place in office environments, despite the fact that no actual construction work in the field had actually started. However, the Coalition changed this measurement and is now only measuring areas where construction crews in streets have been instructed to actually start deploying infrastructure.

“The company is also today updating the rollout maps on the NBN Co website to provide residents with clarity around those areas where (a) the physical building of the NBN has started or (b) is about to start (c) as well as locations where services are already available,” said NBN Co in a media release in October.

Consequently, NBN Co’s new map only has two metrics — areas which can connect to the NBN now and areas where NBN Co is actively pursuing construction work on the ground right now.

The changed metric appears to make NBN Co’s map significantly more accurate. Delimiter had received a number of complaints over the past year that NBN Co had not actually commenced network construction in the areas where it said it had, due to ongoing delays. In addition, the company’s three year forecasts were inherently inaccurate due to the fact that the Coalition is planning to significantly modify NBN Co’s rollout scheme to include a mix of technologies.

“The maps will be updated when further areas enter the building stage and the shape of the rollout becomes clearer following the completion of the Strategic Review into the NBN,” said NBN Co in October.

However, many Australians had been using NBN Co’s maps to predict where the NBN was to be rolled out, and expressed significant amounts of disappointment that their premises appeared to have been removed from NBN Co’s plans.

“More than half a million homes and businesses were today identified as the first victims of the Coalition cuts to the National Broadband Network,” said Shadow Communications Minister Jason Clare on 30 October.

“Before the election Malcolm Turnbull promised to honour existing contracts, now he has broken that promise,” Clare said. “This week Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull have pulled the plug on half a million homes and businesses that were expecting to receive fibre to the home. They are the first victims of the Coalition’s cuts to the NBN.” Labor has also produced video advertisements criticising the Coalition over the issue.

However, in a ruling published late last week (we recommend you click here for the full article), local fact-checking site PolitiFact Australia took significant issue with Labor’s claims.

“For Labor to say “construction had already commenced” on these premises implies construction sites lying fallow outside half a million houses, even perhaps that construction contracts have been cancelled or terminated while in progress,” the site wrote. “That would torpedo the Coalition’s commitment to honour existing construction contracts, if it were true. We could find no evidence it was. In fact, construction contracts had not been issued for the premises in question.”

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull had previously stated that Labor’s benchmarks for the NBN were inaccurate.

“There was one area – about 3,000 premises in Prospect, in South Australia, in [Labor MP] Kate Ellis’s electorate, in fact – where they said construction had commenced in April 2012. Well, it’s now November 2013. Nothing has happened. Nothing has happened. Not even the designs have been finalised,” said Turnbull in an interview on Channel Ten’s Meet the Press in early November.

“Those householders were victims of Labor’s lies and spin about broadband. Labor invented all sorts of misleading metrics.”

opinion/analysis
I largely agree with Politifact’s ruling on this issue, as I usually do. The premises which vanished from NBN Co’s maps in late October have not been “cut” from the NBN. Every Australian premise will ultimately receive high-speed broadband under the NBN in some form, whether it be FTTP, FTTN, FTTB, satellite or wireless. And many of those premises will, in fact, receive FTTP, as the Coalition is still planning to go ahead with a significant proportion of Labor’s FTTP model.

What has changed is the metrics. NBN Co is now only publishing on its maps two core metrics — where construction has actually, really started for the NBN infrastructure, and those areas where NBN services are available.

I’ve received a lot of complaints about the inaccuracy of NBN Co’s maps over the past year or so. I wholly support the changes which were made in October. Those maps were incredibly out of date and didn’t reflect reality on the ground.

What is, of course, still missing is any forward planning from the maps. However, this is obviously impossible to detail right now as the mix of technologies planned for the NBN is very much up in the air, pending the results of the company’s Strategic Review. Hopefully we’ll get some more visibility on that in a month or so.

125 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t give a fuck what some ‘factchecker’ site says.

    My house was cut, and it’s never going to come back until the Coalition get booted out.

    Fact check is biased and constantly getting it wrong. They are using semantic games and argument shifting to once again pad the ‘facts’ towards the Coalition:

    “But it’s bold to say houses have been “cut from Labor’s NBN” if they didn’t actually have Labor’s NBN in the first place.”

    THAT’S NOT THE QUESTION THEY ASKED THEMSELVES!

    “Says over half a million houses where construction had already commenced have been cut from Labor’s NBN.”

    They have gone from the “houses where construction had commenced” being ‘fact checked’ and turned it into “if your house doesn’t have NBN already it doesn’t count as being cut.”

    The so called “fact checkers” have gone off on their own tangent, then delivered their conclusion based on the strawman they created instead of the ACTUAL FUCKING QUOTE from Labor.

    That site is a biased joke.

    • “My house was cut, and it’s never going to come back until the Coalition get booted out.”

      Evidence? The Coalition’s policy will still see all Australians receive some upgrade … whether it’s FTTN, FTTB or FTTP.

      • We have HFC already. Whatever ‘upgrade’ to the copper will be pointless. The upload speed will be just as bad as it is on cable.

        • The catch-cry was, the new government would provide Aussies with fast broadband sooner and cheaper…

          If the 12th Man isn’t getting it sooner, he just proved the government wrong… period.

          I for one am getting sick and tired of different rules being applied to the two different roll outs. Surely, if one needs to be fully open and transparent and meet targets without any excuses, so does the other…

          And before the shills start their submissive bullshit, yes we should be willing to give the new government a grace period… but not too much considering NBNCo is operational and just needs to be tweaked… the wheel doesn’t have to be reinvented.

          • Err, in case you aren’t aware… 2014 and 2015 come before 2016 and those who were due to receive FttP in these years and won’t, prove the sooner claim to be an absolute lie…

            Thanks again for reaffirming the lie :)

          • But as you well know the FTTP rollout was and is massively behind its targets, to say those areas that were due to get FTTP in 2014 and 2015 would have definitely got FTTP on the ever changing NBN Co white board map predictions is really spinning the roulette wheel, the game of chance especially for those that thought they were getting FTTP in 2013 from 2012 predictions but are not has already been played.

          • Conjecture about what could have been…

            Here’s what is…

            “Malcolm Turnbull’s communications ministry quietly missed its first major, self-imposed deadline on Sunday, which marked 60 days of the Abbott government and therefore the latest date on which the current NBN review should have been delivered.

            That deadline was never going to be met – nor was Turnbull’s earlier commitment to November 11. Neither, for that matter, will Tony Abbott be able to honour the promise he made, on the launch of the Coalition’s official NBN election policy, that he would deliver a revised NBN Corporate Plan by his 100th day in office (around Christmastime); now, Turnbull says that is due in mid-2014.”

            And…

            “Obviously, we now learn, the Coalition was just kidding with all those straight-faced election promises. Its NBN review, apparently due in early December, has blown out its timeframe by nearly 40 percent and the revision of its NBN Corporate Plan is already six months behind schedule.

            This, from a government that made a hobby of bludgeoning Labor whenever it managed to delay the NBN by weeks or months.”

            At least have the kahunas or decency (ahem) to criticise both sides not just one and laud the other, when in the same circumstances…FFS.

          • Which doesn’t address anything I said, I assume that was put in the too hard basket so you repetitively droned on about your current hobby horse instead.

          • Err, I commented first and you didn’t address anything I said?

            Seriously how childish will you go?

            Once again I humbly suggest you move on and let the past and your utter Labor/NBN hatred go…

            So to the point, having endlessly (still to this day) bagged one side for missing targets why aren’t you willing to bag the others?

        • So, you’ve got HFC? That puts you ahead of the vast majority of Australians whose options are ADSL (if they’re lucky), 3G, dialup or satellite. Perhaps the rollout should change to first deliver the NBN to those with the most need, rather than the loudest whingers.

    • Yup, always the way, don’t like the answer, it’s bias…

      Suck it up princess, you could be a Phillipino resident wondering if someone is going to bury the rotting corpses of your relatives lying in the street.

      • Ah, the old “well, at least you aren’t dead” argument. What good is that? It doesn’t fix the NBN, it doesn’t get FTTP rolled out.

        It’s just a blatant troll.

        • May I ask what are the huge files you need to upload? Not being a a smart*ss, just curious.

          • If you do professional work then get a professional connection; NBN is consumer grade.

          • Uh… The NBN was going to offer business grade connections. A huge part of the benefit of all FTTP was that small businesses would finally be able to afford super high speed, near symmetric fiber connections. If you want that now you would have to pay an absurd amount of money to get it, an amount that no small business could afford.

          • Gee for someone who normally avoids me, you are chatty today… I’d better start some of those, Fibroid can disappear now questions…ROFL.

            So you again introduce the strawman…typical.

            Where did I say FttP would cost in total $30B…

            I said (read my lips and put the strawmman back in the cupboard) “why is it ok for a government to spend $30B…”

            So you tell me, how much were the previous government going to spend on FttP…?

          • I see you felt obligated to comment and say anything following the inferred challenge…LOL

            Now answer my question – “where did I mention $30B being the FttP total” ?

          • I still have no idea what your point is, you have clarified nothing, but of course that’s the intention.

          • You’ll do anything to avoid the obvious won’t you… ?

            Remember this is an evidence based forum.

            As such, it really is comical to see you dodge and weave and as another poster pointed out, while ever you refuse to accept the two clear factual government funding aspects of FttP and FttN policies, you are clearly in breach of Delimiter policy…

            Period.

          • I tried to upload a file standard 5 minute video from a phone a few weeks ago and it took more than 2 hours a file does not need to be massive to benefit from a decent upload speed.

          • My ADSL connection has massive congestion from being on a rim… My average upload speed test is 0.08Mbps. It takes me 8 Hours just to upload a 30second video clip from my phone on the home connection.

            Its bullshit. Id like to see area’s on rim’s be upgraded before existing areas with decent connections. Oh needless to say my area is “NBN enabled” because the local isp has an Wimax tower setup, not that i can get it due to being on the back side of a hill with Line of sight issues.

      • Actually Asmodai, I think you may be onto something (with all due respect to our grieving Filipino friends).

        The motto for MT…

        “FttN… well it’s better than being dead…”

      • Dude… not cool…

        You can be as blunt as you want w/ any political argument you wish but don’t go down go dragging down recent disasters/catastrophe’s to prove your point.

        I’m luck enough to not have any close relatives hit in that area but I assure you I would be very very veeerry insulted if I did.

      • As someone who has family in Leyte, I’d like you not to use their suffering to support your rediculous argument. And just because you’re comfortable with your current situation, doesn’t mean you should attack others who are unhappy with their own situation regarding any public service.

  2. Well all I really know is that NBN and other technicians were repeatedly seen working in various parts of my and ajoining suburbs here in Newcastle before the change and haven’t been seen since. Maybe thats just a coincidence.

    • Things definitely seem quieter here too. Before the election you couldn’t go 2 steps without tripping over an NBN Co person. Now they are as scarce as hens teeth.
      There seem to be a lot of these “coincidences”.
      Maybe we all need to move to Blacktown where its full steam ahead! ;) (Maybe we could find some our technicians there too! )

      • +1 Cheltenham, VIC

        NBN Co [Visionstream] guys around about; pushing blue cables into pits.

        Haven’t seen anyone in the last couple weeks.

  3. There is a lot of information, that the government could clear up instantly, but like most coalition governments they hide information, (aka the blue books) and like to give out presents like Santa Claus, to fool the weak minded fools. The previous government was showing the actual complete project for a area, which actually gives people a clearer and honest view.

    What the NBN actually changed, was the signing off of the final hub to premise design and construction permission. This is what was actually updated. As some contractors were running late in submitting the design plans they were wiped, but some are due to reappear.

    There are many areas, where fibre has actually been run to the distribution hubs. But no fibre has been run to the premise. As the final design to the premise was not finalised or signed, the NBN removed these premises. I think it is approximately 140k more homes to be connected as per contract.

    • “but like most coalition governments they hide information, (aka the blue books) and like to give out presents like Santa Claus, to fool the weak minded fools.”

      Speaking of weak minded fools, the blue book is issued by the department, you know, that thing which is staffed by the public sector and continues to remain no matter which group of politicians is in power. It isnt a labor ‘blue book’ and it isnt a ‘coalition’ blue book. Educate yourself before casting the first ‘weak minded fool’ stone.

      • You’re saying there is no possible way that Turnbull could have influenced the decision at all?
        I find it hard to believe he didn’t have something to say on the matter, whether the guy listened to him and care how secure his job was is another issue.

      • So according to your logic it’s not political they have no issue, in releasing it minus the commercial sensitive information.

  4. We have NBN Co workers in the streets here now, and have had for many, many months and we are now apparently no longer under construction.
    People here are rightly asking what these workers are doing then if they aren’t constructing the NBN. Their vehicles have NBN Co logos, their clothes have NBN Co logos, and yet, according the Turnbull there is no construction going on here. How is Turnbull’s new metric sensible when it doesn’t show what is actually happening either? Politifact seems to ignore this.

    Simple fact is, people are expecting the result of this construction to provide FTTP as promised. Anything less is going to be seen as a broken promise. You cant say you will complete what is in build, and build something different.

    • In which case you’re still probably getting FTTP…

      So unclench, you’ve been waiting patiently for the ALP all these years, what’s the rush now the LNP are in?

      X D

      • Probably getting it. Now that’s reassuring – something to put the house on! Of course the other side of that is probably not getting it. Distinct possibility as well now hat Turnbull is dancing around what “under construction” actually is and what promises he is actually going to keep.

        Turnbull has been pushing the “open and transparent” for so long, we were actually thinking he might actually follow through and do that. So far its been the exact opposite. We have far less information now than we have ever had. Holding people to account only apparently applies to “Conjob” and the Labor Party though. Turnbull and the Libs get a free pass from you – as usual.

        • Funny, you used to read me the riot act, and advocate patience, many of the times I suggested that the ALP should be more forthcoming, or do better due diligence.

          Now that we’ve had a change of gov. it’s vitally important to you.

          I would say ‘ironic’ but it’s hardly suprising…

          Hey Creo, has the sky fallen yet? X D

          • I thinks its a crack up that you have abandoned your requirement for people to be held to account since the govt has changed, especially given all the noise Turnbull has made about truth, honesty, and transparency.

            Had you be following along, I had plenty of questions about the NBN rollout, but hey, your revisionism only fits your agenda as usual. Facts be damned!

            So, getting away from your hypocrisy, and back to the actual topic at hand, how can Politifact come up with its false ruling, with the following assumption “Of the 500,000 houses Labor claims have been cut from their NBN, no construction contracts had been issued. ” when this clearly isn’t the case. I spokle to an NBN Co worker on the ground here last week who told me contracts had been signed – and yet we are part of the 500,000 removed. Politicfact clearly have this wrong.
            They are also incorrect in saying people its wrong to say people were “cut from Labors NBN”. Labor were rolling out FTTP. If any of these 500,000 get anything less than FTTP , clearly they aren’t getting Labors NBN. They are getting something different entirely.

          • Wow another here to push the extreme political mantra at the expense of why we are all otherwise here…

      • If you tried to miss the point, you have succeeded.

        If areas are under construction, then the figures (metrics) should show it. That’s the point.

        Telling people to unclench or calling them princess, does not greatly enhance the debate, it does, however, says a lot about you.

  5. The problem with the maps isn’t just forward planning. Work has arguably been done in places where the map no-longer says Building.

    EG, The fibre ring has been built around Canberra’s Inner North (9CVI), which you would be hard pressed to say is not “build commenced” for the FSA. Most of the FSAMs have been designed, but only the 9CVI-1 (Braddon) FSAM is now showing as in Build. So the question is: Are they going to complete all the FSAMs within a commenced FSA, or not?

    If not, work has gone to waste. Design work, pit and pipe remediation and construction of the fibre ring might not meet MT’s definition of “build commenced” but they are all work that cost NBNCo money that will be wasted if the FSAM isn’t built.

    • I’ve mentioned it before, but Turnbull made a great deal of noise about how the NBN wasn’t nearly as progressed as the maps said it was (which turned out to be pretty accurate right?).

      Being on the map was no guarantee of getting a connection until some guy walked to your door.

      So initially culling out anything questionable and then re-adding it later when they are actually certain seems like a good idea to me at least.

      The other possibility is that he’s dumped them to blunt expectation and by the time most people find out they won’t be getting fibre, they’ll have gotten used to the fact they aren’t on the map anymore. So soon after the election, he can use (and has used) the excuse that the ALP was blowing smoke and put some of the blame back on them. Also plausible.

      The long and short of it was that the old map wasn’t accurate and gave people false hope. This map is still inaccurate but doesn’t raise expectations. Of the two, the latter is more sensible.

  6. Well, i guess it’s something, but the NBNCo rollout map finally has something for my ‘shire’ up on it, apparently, build commenced on Fixed Wireless in October 2013.

    Though the Fixed Wireless is for the rural portion of the shire.

  7. I just have one question (political shills please troll elsewhere)…

    Why is it when NBNCo changed the ‘metrics’ of how the actual NBN roll out was measured they were shouted down as incompetent, mis-managers the NBN has failed but now it is quite ok…?

  8. “The long and short of it was that the old map wasn’t accurate and gave people false hope. This map is still inaccurate but doesn’t raise expectations. Of the two, the latter is more sensible.”

    Keep people in the dark. This is the way to go. I can’t believe I didn’t realise that before. Tell them nothing. This way they won’t be disappointed. Brilliant. But what about democracy? Never mind, after all, the Coalition has all the gifted politicians in its ranks. They know what ‘s good for us.

    • “Keep people in the dark. This is the way to go. I can’t believe I didn’t realise that before. Tell them nothing. This way they won’t be disappointed. Brilliant. But what about democracy? Never mind, after all, the Coalition has all the gifted politicians in its ranks. They know what ‘s good for us.”

      You seem to be confusing understanding what is the more politically sensible option with approval of that option…

      You do get that you can understand something without implicitly supporting it?

      You’d also recall that Conjob’s default policy was the keep everything hush hush as well? Both should be (should have been) more open and accountable, but I can understand why neither want to be… =)

  9. Renai

    What constitutes construction under the new definition? I understand that the previous maps were misleading and I’m all for transparency in this area but when I have seen Visionstream crews running fibre up the main road and guys in NBN hi-vis vests roping pits all over my suburb I have to ask how this does not fit the definition of construction? Why do you ignore this element of the story, Renai?

    Dave
    Glebe, NSW

    • I’m sure the new maps are not 100% accurate, mate ;)

      In addition, have you considered that they may be building backhaul and not last mile fibre? What suburb are we talking about here?

    • Dave, sounds like the crews in your area are rodding & roping in preparation for construction.

      In the previous definition of ‘under construction’, the preliminary activities of surveying/reporting and rodding & roping the existing Telstra network and also producing the detailed design for an FSAM were included; in the new regime they are not.

      You could argue the toss either way as to whether these activities should be included in the metric; clearly there were a large number of FSAMs at this stage though, as many have now disappeared from the public maps.

      ‘Build commenced’ for an FSAM is now defined as being when a contract instruction is issued by NBN Co to the delivery partner for physical build to commence, which occurs following completion of the detailed design.

      • Thanks for the info. I’m sure the fibre I saw going into Glebe Point road (Glebe NSW) is necessary for deployment of any FTTx network and not therefore specific to the FTTP rollout. The roping of pits down the cull de sac I live on seems unlikely to have been for anything other than FTTP. What do we, the public, gain by pretending this work hasn’t been carried out? By ignoring these elements of the network’s construction so publicly we are allowing the new government to mislead us into thinking that all this money spent so far was wasted. In fact it will only have been wasted if we don’t go ahead with the fibre rollout in these areas. That’s why I think that the definition being used in the new map is wrong. It should include as much information as possible. Accuracy is not the issue here – the line has been drawn very carefully to play down the construction which is underway. How much money will have been wasted should all this prep have been for nothing?

        • I think it would be useful to see the field survey/detailed design phase represented separately from the physical construction phase on the public map.

          • I think that’s a great idea. Keeping the preliminary surveys measured separately from actual construction is, I think, important. The survey itself could throw up all sort of info that means different construction techniques need to be used where pits and conduits are in poor condition, or copper is in poor or good condition. Could drastically change the rollout technologies and timeframe for that suburb. Calling that construction work was always somewhat dodgy.

          • Just out of interest and please excuse my ignorance but would roping not be a part of construction rather than research/design? I assumed perhaps ignorantly that roping is a step in the process that facilitates new cables being pulled or fished through from pit to pit? I’ve seen crews taking notes around the same pits some weeks, maybe months prior to the roping. I’d define a bloke with a clipboard as research/design and a bloke with tools as part of construction but maybe I misunderstand the process.

  10. “Every Australian premise will ultimately receive high-speed broadband under the NBN in some form”.

    No! For the love of Greg… “premise” (a proposition supporting a conclusion) is not the singular of “premises” (a tract of land including its buildings). You would think that so-called professional writers with several years of exposure to fibre-to-the-premises might have caught on by now. Fact check that!

  11. Obviously not being “cut” from NBN, but 500K premises will no longer get FTTP as per previous ALP NBN rollout, and will now get fraudband from LNP.

    Politifact can check that if they like ;)

  12. As far as I am aware – There will still be construction going on to replace the infrastructure network with fibre.

    It is only the “last mile” to your house which may or may not be changed over to fibre.

    Although – it was my understanding that some places will still be receiving FTTP connections.

  13. Really? And we’re meant to believe this at face value?!?!?
    Fact-Check/PolitiFact had better get their facts straight!!!

    200 metres away from me, in a different stage of my estate, houses were connected to the NBN earlier this year – and according to NBN Co website (prior to the Liberals taking office) my part was meant to be connected by June 2014 … now NBN Co website has removed all references to my area, and has no indication of if/when i’ll ever be connected.

    So certainly my house (as well as many surrounding houses) was cut from the NBN Co list !!!!
    Does that mean that in June 2014 that I’ll suddenly be listed on NBN Co’s website as “being able to get NBN”? Who knows … it takes ALOT to place so much hope as blindly as that, and only a FOOL would do such a thing, even more so at the hands of a politician.
    I certainly don’t hold out much hope.

  14. And just what would have been wrong with changing the areas marked as “under construction” where it was just initial checks and planning, as “design and planning” and areas where Telstra are fixing pits and pipes as “Telstra remediation” or the like ? Absolutely nothing wrong with doing that, and if jxeeno and his mynbn.info site can do it, so can NBNco.

    Removing all the within 1 year, within 3 years etc areas from the map serves one purpose only, to allow Turnbull to escape from expectations, he doesn’t have to meet any targets whatsoever.

    It would be crazy for politicians to announce they are going to build 30 km of new freeway, but you have to wait until the bulldozers move in before we tell you where or put it on the map. But somehow it’s ‘fine’ to do the same with the FTTH roll out to 150,000 homes and businesses.

    ps: the Australian version of Politifact seems to be of much poorer quality compared to it’s US parent, not sure why. I don’t really trust it, as some of it’s results run contrary to common sense.

  15. It’s always amusing when a independent site like Politifact come out and support the Coalition position the pro Labor FTTP supporters always cry ‘they got it wrong’ or they are ‘biased’, but when they have supported a Labor point of view or give a negative rating to the Coalition it’s always spot on.

    What is also overlooked is that the Labor NBN rollout missed targets by massive amounts, this is after two terms of Government, and areas previously targeted on mapping were rescheduled or just dropped off the map, but apparently it’s all the Coalitions fault, even though they have only been Government for two months.

      • It’s not a big deal, Labor had six years to plan and rollout their version of the NBN, and what was the result at the end, the actual achieved rollout was a little over a half of what the NBN Co predicted it would be one year earlier.

        After two months of Coalition Government most of the hands on activity has been making appointments to the NBN Co and trying to keep the faltering in-contract FTTP rollout on track and sorting through the problems they inherited from Labor, that is the multi billion dollar extravaganza that even Conroy said was ‘too ambitious’.

        After two months of Labor in 2007 all we got was we think we will change our mind on the pre-election promised NBN, and we will think about it until 2009-2010.

        • Yes, they did pretty damn well. Way better than the 12 years in which the Coalition rolled out nothing as plan after plan fail to even get off the ground. Let’s hope Turnbull hasn’t screwed things up too much. It doesn’t look good so far, every date he has given for reviews, rollout, etc, has been blown. At least something was being done, now only the unstoppable is continuing. It will be interesting to see how badly Turnbull screws up.

          • I wasn’t aware the Coaltion had set any rollover targets, and if they did they have six years to get it right , sorry correction, they have six years to try and get it to ‘near enough’.

          • It’s quite apparent there’s lots of facts you aren’t aware of (READ unwilling to learn) and even more facts you ignore, because it isn’t prudent for you to never to accept them… which makes corresponding with you all the more fun…

            Here give it a go and at least try to learn (from the link)… “Malcolm Turnbull’s communications ministry quietly missed its first major, self-imposed deadline on Sunday, which marked 60 days of the Abbott government and therefore the latest date on which the current NBN review should have been delivered.”

            D’oh…

            Even with all the foundation work completed by the previous mob, NBNCo up and racing, contracts signed etc, the Goldilocks Coalition who are always “just right’ according to you, fell at the first hurdle and couldn’t sign off on a simple review…

            …And six more years of face-palms ahead for them… enjoy, you deserve it :)

          • The school boy debating tactics of… “yeah well Labor did”… reappear… *sigh*. I’m not defending Labor FFS… forget your dumb political obedience for a second (just one even…).

            We all know NBNCo/Labor were behind in their roll out and missed targets, I never said they weren’t/didn’t, so your school boy debating technique is again, not only ridiculous, but found to be typically, completely invalid…

            Fibroid, the party you faithfully represent here 24/7 won the election and are now governing. What was, was… get out of opposition mode and lead FFS…It’s time to move on from what was.

            And having moved on, the facts are that at the first hurdle the Coalition have simply (like the last supposed incompetent mob) not met their own target either, have they?

            So they must be just as incompetent surely… as the last mob eh?

            In fact, having failed so early on and relating to such an easy target… simple review(s), aren’t they even more incompetent?

            So since they didn’t meet their own target, like the last mob, are the current government incompetent…?

            Seriously, coming from the then opposition who hounded the previous roll out for missing targets and then claimed mismanagement/themselves as better managers, this simply isn’t good enough, don’t you agree?

            Since you bagged the previous mob at the very first hurdle lets see you now bag the current mob for doing the same… it’s only fair isn’t it?

          • You need to get their minor missed reporting deadline into some perspective, which at the moment is a week late wow !! let’s boot them out of Government, let’s call a double dissolution, they obviously have no idea how to roll out the NBN.

            I provided that perspective of what happened under Labor, you don’t like it, no surprises there, and then you ludicrously compare a minor missed report deadline to massively missed multiple rollover targets as if they are at the same level of importance.

          • So you begrudgingly admit they missed their first target!

            ***Hallelujah***

            Oh dear though… they can’t blame contractors or Telstra’s asbestos, etc like the others did, they have no one to blame for failing but themselves.

            D’oh, again.

          • It’s not just one report, they have added a year to the start time. How’s that work? Not rolling out premises has taken longer than expected?

          • Dunno about a year, but …

            “Malcolm Turnbull’s communications ministry quietly missed its first major, self-imposed deadline on Sunday, which marked 60 days of the Abbott government and therefore the latest date on which the current NBN review should have been delivered.

            That deadline was never going to be met – nor was Turnbull’s earlier commitment to November 11. Neither, for that matter, will Tony Abbott be able to honour the promise he made, on the launch of the Coalition’s official NBN election policy, that he would deliver a revised NBN Corporate Plan by his 100th day in office (around Christmastime); now, Turnbull says that is due in mid-2014.”

            And…

            “Obviously, we now learn, the Coalition was just kidding with all those straight-faced election promises. Its NBN review, apparently due in early December, has blown out its timeframe by nearly 40 percent and the revision of its NBN Corporate Plan is already six months behind schedule.

            This, from a government that made a hobby of bludgeoning Labor whenever it managed to delay the NBN by weeks or months.”

          • Well to be brutally honest, people don’t need to know much to out debate you… sorry.

    • Its always amusing when people who don’t support your position are labelled Labor supporters, and yet you complain that they are labelling others based on political bias. Pot and kettle? LOL

      You are very happy to ignore the arguments put forward, and fall back to this position of claiming bias. If you actually read through some of posts your deride you will see there is clear issues taken with the Politifact article, based not on politics, but obvious flaws in their claims. When you can come back and address these, you might be taken a bit more credibly.

  16. I think the big issue is what you define as starting construction. Turnbull and PolitiFact Australia take a narrow and deceptive view, indeed I believe most local councils would disagree with their definition, and could take a developer to court.

    Quite simply, most people would think custruction starts when you start physical work on ground works. ie for a house you dig the foundations and poor the footings. The similar anaology with the NBN is when remediation orders are passed to Telstra. This is excluded from the maps.

    They have also subtly changed the wording of the rollout, again to probably hide things in the future. They changed from “fibre” to “fixed line”.

  17. Funny thing is, my architect charges me for the plans for my house. The council charges me for the land I am going to build my house on.

    So from a very real financial perspective, the project of building a house starts long before sod is actually turned. This is even more important for subterranean infrastructure where you have to know what’s in the ground already, plan for that, order the materials required (e.g.: the fibre optic cable, for starters), apply for clearances through the relevant planning channels, and pretty much have planned every last spadeful of earthworks required before you start the first hole.

    Perhaps Labor was not playing the right kind of word games and should have used “Design and Construction” rather than just “construction”. As it stands there has been a lot of work done to get ready for putting holes in the ground.

    The Liberals are being disingenuous to suggest that “nothing” has happened just because there aren’t people in the street with trench digging or horizontal boring equipment.

    I’d love to see Malcolm’s idea of “building a house” if he doesn’t count getting plans drawn up and approved to be part of “building a house.” Because noooo…. all that counts is putting bricks and mortar together. Who needs planning, when you were born to rule and know everything and are always right?

    • Yup. From ABS statistics framework, until cement is actually being poured and bricks laid, the VALUE OF CONSTRUCTION WORK DONE is big fat nil. You can pay a million to your architect for completed design and drawings, the ABS does not consider any building work to have been done.

      • Why keep shifting the goal posts to construction started?
        He said he would honor “existing contracts” NOT “existing contracts where construction has begun”.

        • And this is pretty much the crux of the argument/annoyance – the goal post shifting to make it seem like Turnbull has technically kept his word.

          Of course goal shifting has been around for every government in power to make their figures look good. A pity of course that people only pay attention to it if it’s “the other” guys in power.

        • Malcolm is honoring the contracts, but there is room within the contracts to reconfigure to FTTN from FTTH. The contractors don’t care what they are paid to do, as long as they are getting paid the same amount and their profitability ain’t hurt. This is pre-election old news.

          • So where are these sooner and cheaper nodes… ?

            Oh that’s right MT needs copper for FttN and that copper belongs to Telstra.

            D’oh again.

          • Well if you read Coalition policy their first build milestone is 2016, I understand you are eager to be the first to be connected to FTTN in Australia, preferably before this Christmas, but you will just have to wait.

          • Well ‘you’ explain how the current governments pre-election promise of fast broadband sooner, can be fulfilled to anyone who was to receive FttP prior to this 2016 FttN build milestone then…?

            I can understand your eagerness in fulfilling your obligations as a obedient shill, but again it has backfired…LOL.

            Because, once again all you have done is proven that claim of sooner to be an absolute lie…

            Thanks for yet again, unwittingly, proving the point… your inadvertent participation is most welcomed.

            D’oh again…

            :)

          • ‘Well ‘you’ explain how the current governments pre-election promise of fast broadband sooner, can be fulfilled to anyone who was to receive FttP prior to this 2016 FttN build milestone then…?’

            Well it’s not all to happen by midnight 2016, it is a progressive rollout to that point, if you didn’t get FTTP under the Labor rollout and you were promised you would (according to dynamic map predictions) it is because they missed rollout targets by massive amounts.

            So depending on the area you may get NBN Co FTTN much sooner than waiting for the FTTP rollout that was described by the Minister in charge of the project in six years of Government as being ‘too ambitious’.

          • Ooh, that’s lovely straight from MT perhaps?

            Yes, 2016 pure “conjecture”…

            Especially having seen the government already miss a simple review deadline (d’oh again). If they can’t manage to conduct a simple review “as they promised”, how the hell are they going to manage $29B+ FttN roll out at all, let alone by 2016?

            Regardless, you seem to forget (READ intentionally ignore) those who were due to receive FttP in 2014 – 2015…

            If they don’t receive FttP or FttN instead (and according to you they won’t, until 2016) the sooner claim is wrong isn’t it?

          • @Alex

            ‘how the hell are they going to manage $29B+ FttN roll out at all, let alone by 2016?’

            Love the not so subtle insertion of the + after $29b as an attempt to emotionally stack the argument, so it’s $29b+ now is it, so you don’t mind if I refer to the final Labor FTTP total funding figure as $45.6b + when comparing the two policy funding requirements?

            As you well know the 2016 milestone is minimum of 25Mbs, which will be accomplished with a mix of infrastructure rollouts, so it’s not a just a $29b devoted pumped all into a FTTN rollout,.

            It’s a FTTN, using existing Telstra HFC, FTTP , wireless and satellite rollout.

            ‘Regardless, you seem to forget (READ intentionally ignore) those who were due to receive FttP in 2014 – 2015…’

            Will those be the same residences who thought they were going to get it in 2012-2013 and did not?

          • Dearet Fibroid…

            ” Love the not so subtle insertion of the + after $29b as an attempt to emotionally stack the argument, so it’s $29b+ now is it, so you don’t mind if I refer to the final Labor FTTP total funding figure as $45.6b + when comparing the two policy funding requirements?”

            Err it’s $29.5B (iirc) so YES CLEARLY $29B+… are you really that pedantically ridiculous (rhetorical, we ALL know the answer)…?

            “It’s a FTTN, using existing Telstra HFC, FTTP , wireless and satellite rollout.”

            Really. There’s a contract between Telstra (Optus) and the Government for the Government to use their infrastructure, link please?

            “Will those be the same residences who thought they were going to get it in 2012-2013 and did not?”

            Which ones? Go read comment 1 from the 12th Man who is already disproving the governments and your pre-election lie of sooner…

            Anyway… remember you and the current government opposed the very “fraudband” topology you now swear by, just six years ago, so in six more years you may finally catch up to FttP too…LOL.

            I’m sure your masters won’t like me replying to you and always clearly demonstrating their already missed targets and the fact that sooner is an out and out lie…

            So thanks for playing…

          • @Alex

            ‘Err it’s $29.5B (iirc) so YES CLEARLY $29B+’

            What’s $29.5b (iirc) acronym for ‘If I remember correctly’ mean, it doesn’t say $29.5b (iirc) in the Coalition policy, and how does iirc become +?

            ‘Really. There’s a contract between Telstra (Optus) and the Government for the Government to use their infrastructure, link please?’

            It still doesn’t mean all the $29.5b will go into FTTN which is what you said, so having been caught out (again) you decide to change the subject into a question about contracts, and shove the original point into the too hard basket (again).

          • ROFL….

            Are you serious, like I mean it… are you fucking serious…?

            You want to argue that $29.5B isn’t $29B+… ROFL, now I’ve heard it all.

            Priceless…

          • Jeez you have run out of rational responses already, that’s much sooner into a discussion than in the past.

          • LOL… seems you must keep the childishness going as you desperately try to save the little cred you may have left?

            But the hole is getting deeper and deeper…

            Tell me again that $29.5B isn’t $29B+? That’s classic, even for you…

            I think you have finally out done before roads there were no roads… congratulations.

          • “Malcolm is honoring the contracts, but there is room within the contracts to reconfigure to FTTN from FTTH. ”

            He is changing the contracts and starting the rollout in, last I saw, about 2015. I’d say that should constitute being deceptive when saying only “existing contracts would be honoured” especially that he would never elaborate on that.

            “The contractors don’t care what they are paid to do, as long as they are getting paid the same amount and their profitability ain’t hurt”

            Sorry? Are you a contractor? They won’t mind paying staff while they wait for the rollout to recommence? The staff won’t mind being retrenched? Changing a contract is not honouring a contract, it is issuing a new one or grossly modifying an existing one. I am sure the contractors will love the money they lost training employees and have to retrain them again, and generally start from scratch on the learning curve.

            “This is pre-election old news”
            No, it was pre-election deception.

          • Building something different entirely is not honouring a contract. Renegotiating creates a new project. Construction companies need to re-tool to complete Turnbulls build.
            His constituents certainly don’t feel “honoured” when they are told they are getting second rate FTTN instead of the FTTP they were promised. The blow ups in the media when areas to get FTTP were removed from the maps is testament to that!

          • @haha yeah: Please feel free to link me to the copies of the contracts that gives provision for FTTN on the build.

            I find it a bit weird why NBN would be making contracts for FTTN provisioning when the build plan was FTTP especially for roll outs that were already in progress at least 2 years before the election came.

            And before you start post election alterations on contracts do not count.

  18. Well, I must have imagined that big NBN truck and people installing that big green roll of fibre in my street with “NBN is coming” signs all over it.

  19. If Politifacts wants to be slightly nitpicky then yes I would agree “500k were *not* cut from the NBN”

    However this is missing the point of why so many people (including yours truly) are in various states of agitation from dislike to plain rage about the “changes”. The tagline should have said “500k were cut from the FTTP part of the NBN”

    And that’s the basic point of contention. A lot of people were expecting to get FTTP. And a majority of the areas while not “Build Commenced” have had a lot of prepwork already done. A lot of these people were expecting to have FTTP. This goal post shifting has completely removed any confidence these areas were due for FTTP.

    Yes we still get the NBN (if your lucky in the form of FTTN if not then HFC for a lot longer..) but not the NBN we were “promised”. But hey… that’s politics the never ending world of goal post shifting and double meanings.

    • I have read the Coalition NBN policy, I don’t expect to get FTTP because I understand it is not a mirror of Labor policy, I worked that out when their policy was released in April and debated in the media nearly very week in much detail over and over since that date.

      The fact is the FTTP rollout is still happening to honour overlapping build contracts implemented under the Labor regime, in the meantime which may come as a surprise to many here the Government in power is planning to implement the policy they had as their NBN pre election promise.

      The goal post shifting is what happens when you get a change of Government with different policies.

      • Again your dancing around the point Fibroid..

        All the areas that were “cut” from the FTTP roll out because they were “Work Commenced” and not “Build Commenced” were under the impression that they were to still received FTTP.

        Why?

        Because when a politician says “Don’t worry. We’re upholding existing contracts” as well as assurances from said Opposition and you see your in an area w/ a planned roll out and actual work being done the logical conclusion is to think that your getting FTTP. Suddenly removing that assurance by moving the goal posts leads to some very disgruntled people.

        Did Malcolm still keep his word? Technically yes. Is it the household’s fault for not being putting enough scrutiny on these supposed “promises” and taking them at face value? Definitely. That however still does not change the fact that the impression for a majority of these people is that they just got shafted from the FTTP “promise”. And that will raise some negative reactions.

        You can quite correctly say “buyers beware”. But that still doesn’t cover the fact people will get angry/disgruntled. It’s like stubbing your own toe. It hurts and you know its your own fault but it doesn’t make the pain any less real.

  20. Brilliant article! I think Michelle Rowland and Jason Clare have marked their territory with their piss weak claims about the Government cutting premises from the roll-out. The electorate now knows that any future attacks on the Government about the NBN will likely be totally political in nature with very little substance in reality. Tony and Malcolm are doing a great job rescuing the NBN from Labor abyss.

    • ROFL!!! Abbott and Turnbull are missing targets even before they have actually decided what it is they are actually doing. Very very poor start from them.

      No doubt hiring more of Mals mates and lining more sympathetic consultants pockets will fix the problem.

  21. I find the reasons why people are debating the merit of Politifact’s findings intriguing. Reading some of their findings shows that on many occasions they do not have sufficient knowledge or expertise to fully investigate the claims. The range of subjects under investigation combined with the availability of some of the information will always make the task of being an expert on everything very difficult. At time they rely on the opinion of third parties which may, or may not, have a vested interest in saying what they are saying.

    But by far, the biggest issue is the way the information is labeled. In Philosophy, there is no room, in logic, for partial truth or falsity. nor is there for partial validity. So to suggest that a claim is mostly true or false gives it an incorrect value. If I were to say that I stole money because I was hungry and its turned out that I wasn’t hungry. It doesn’t make my claim party true or partly false, it makes false. Why because my reason was false.

    So, to hold Politifact, as some sort of beacon to the truth is probably giving it more credit that it deserves.

    It is worth noting that in relation to the finding under discussion, it made these points:

    “Whether the construction phase includes planning or not is a politically loaded semantic argument: The Coalition has a stake in talking down the previous progress of the NBN; The Labor Party has a stake in talking it up.”

    • Indeed Observer (I mean me… *sigh*)…

      It is strange that an organisation appears and claims to be x, y, z and everyone says, well they should be listened to, after all they are x, y, z…

      It reminds me of Facebook, where you see all these wannabees, selling themselves, banging their chests and showing just why they are the best…. and you know why they are the best?

      Well because they say they are :/ There’s no factual basis, it’s because they say so…

      It boils down to the old proof of the pudding and so far the Politifact pudding tastes like mouldy bullshit, IMO…

    • @Observer/Alex

      ‘I find the reasons why people are debating the merit of Politifact’s findings intriguing. Reading some of their findings shows that on many occasions they do not have sufficient knowledge or expertise to fully investigate the claims.’

      What I find intriguing is how your superficial philosophical analysis of Politifact claims and the questioning of their findings is only important to comment about when it rejects a Labor statement about the Coalition NBN rollout so when coupled with their previous findings on NBN statements we have for Coalition comments two half true and one mostly true and for Labor comments on the NBN we get one disconnected from the facts and one mostly false.

      http://www.politifact.com.au/subjects/national-broadband-network/

      If the ratio was the other way around there would be zero analysis of anything Politifact does, just support to keep up the good work.

      • So you agree with Politifacts that the then opposition (now government) mislead in relation to 25Mbps claim and also agree that rural users will pay 7% more than city users under the current government?

        And what about PF’s claim that Albo’s $5k FoD was no more relaible or otherwise than the Coalitions $3K… but it will we in the $1000’s…!

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