Delimiter files FOI request seeking rationale for NBN sell-off

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news Technology media outlet Delimiter today filed a Freedom of Information request with Infrastructure Australia, seeking to determine the organisation’s undisclosed rationale for its recommendation today that the Federal Government split up the NBN company into chunks and privatise the whole lot.

Today Infrastructure Australia released what it billed as a 15-year Infrastructure Plan and associated priority list, marking what the agency said was 18 months of work (presumably since the 2013 Federal Election). The agency said the “first of its kind” plan delivered a roadmap to “more affordable, innovative and competitive infrastructure”.

Page 110 of the plan (available in PDF format online) deals with Infrastructure Australia’s vision for the future of the National Broadband Network project.

In its document, Infrastructure Australia states baldly that over the medium-term period, the Federal Government should “transfer NBN Co to private ownership”, including options for splitting the NBN company into chunks on either technological or geographical grounds. However, Infrastructure Australia did not include any rationale or evidence for why it had made the recommendation.

Delimiter has attempted to contact Infrastructure Australia to invite comment on the basis for the recommendation.

In addition, Delimiter today filed a Freedom of Information application with Infrastructure Australia seeking key pieces of information which may inform the public how Infrastructure Australia formed the view that the NBN company should be split up and sold off.

You can follow Delimiter’s FOI request on the Right to Know website here. Delimiter has requested that Infrastructure Australia release:

  • A list of documents, articles and any other reference material that Infrastructure Australia consulted before coming to the view that the NBN company should be privatised
  • A list of organisations and individuals that Infrastructure Australia consulted before coming to the view that the NBN company should be privatised
  • A list of individuals within Infrastructure Australia who contributed towards the agency’s view that the NBN company should be privatised
  • Any email communication since the 2013 Federal Election between Infrastructure Australia and the office of the Communications Minister (including the current Minister, Senator Mitch Fifield, and the previous Minister, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull) on the topic of privatising the National Broadband Network

The NBN is Australia’s largest ever infrastructure project and consists of a platform which will be used by all Australians to meet their future telecommunications needs. With this in mind, Delimiter believes it would be strongly in the public interest for the above documents to be released, in order to provide a better basis for what is expected to be a strong and protracted national debate on whether the NBN company should be privatised.

It is believed that the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens would be likely to oppose any privatisation effort with relation to the NBN company, meaning that the Federal Government would be forced to seek the assistance of crossbench Senators to get legislation privatising the NBN company through the Senate.

Although a Federal Election is slated to be held later this year, the make-up of the Senate would not change until mid-2017, due to the fact that Senators hold fixed terms for six years. The Senate last changed its composition (to reflect the 2013 Federal Election) in July 2014.

Delimiter will publicly release and analyse any documents that it receives from Infrastructure Australia as a result of this Freedom of Information request.

74 COMMENTS

  1. Good stuff Renai. Although knowing their (nbn that is) previous FOI outcomes (costly and un-informative) I think I know what the answer will be :(
    Gotta try though! Good luck with it.

  2. *cue Infrastructure Australia running around trying to find material to support their foregone conclusion*

    Is that too cynical?

    ;-)

    • It’ll be rejected as “commercial in confidence”.

      Assuming, on the very off chance that it doesn’t get rejected, it’ll be pages of a solid black rectangle with maybe 16 words that aren’t redacted.

  3. How much does it cost to file a FOI Renai, and how long does the process generally take?

    • It should take no longer than about a month, quoting from the FOI web page.
      Cost can be nothing to how ever many hours it takes someone to print + black mark + re-scan + make 10 coffees = $???

    • It usually takes at least several months — minimum — and costs can range up to several thousand dollars.

      I am relatively skilled at jumping through the correct hoops to get a decent outcome, however. Successfully retrieving documents under FOI is considered something of an art form.

      • So will you be posting an analysis of the commercial in confidence rejection you get in reply?

        • +1

          Either that or
          it’s not in the National Interest
          Cabinet documents – restricted
          some other bullshit answer

          Labour selling the NBN was my only issue with their partially implemented plan

  4. Sic ’em Rex! :D

    But I think we all know it’s just a continuation of the Abbott directive to destroy the NBN. It’s anathema to their entire political philosophy. (which in itself is very narrow …. think ‘business’.)

  5. Unfortunately it seems that Infrastructure Australia is looking to please its political masters.

    It is not just this but apparently East-West link a road that would lose 50c for every $1 invested is now a priority.
    This road has suddenly jumped in priority for no reason. I drive to work east to west and if it get to busy or congested I will take the train. No city in the world has no congestion no matter how many roads they build.

    • It wasn’t for the plebs. It was so their corporate mates could use trucks to transport more stuff to the ports without having to use more expensive rail.

  6. Give em hell Renai. Hopefully they will be a bit more forth coming with the information you seek than the Government and NBN Co have been so far.

    I will note that that you seem to think they have no hair… (In its document, Infrastructure Australia states “baldly” that over the medium-term period). Perhaps you meant boldy…?

  7. The only way to create/increase competition in the Australian Telecoms Industry is via cheap equal access to all pits, pipes and exchanges nationwide.
    Until then, no one will invest Australian telecom networks and you will just continue to see consolidation until there is a cartel like environment.
    I support the NBN sell off, ONLY in return for unbias unrestricted cheap access to common key telecommunications assets such as Pits, Pipes and Exchanges.

    • One would ‘assume’, the reason Telstra negotiations took so long with NBNCo & NBN™ was to ensure that Telstra, in the event of an NBN fire sale (as would be the case with this woeful MTM) have agreed iron clad clauses to regain ownership of anything and everything previously belonging to them that they wanted back?

      If so one would then assume pits etc would be high on such a list.

  8. I’m glad you’re all over this Renai, it smacks of liberal political interference. E.g. ‘Write us a paper with a result we want or lose your funding’.

    It wouldn’t surprise me if some lib cronies got some fat contracts to “help out” with the report.

  9. “It may be desirable to defer the privatisation of NBN Co until the rollout is complete, both to avoid disrupting a complicated infrastructure project and in recognition that private investors are likely to have less appetite for risk during the rollout phase.” Australian Infrastructure Plan, pp 110

    So we’re supposed to take all the risk and pain, then flog it off to the investors as quickly as possible so they can rip us off in the most efficient way possible. Bah.

    Good on you Renai, this definitely needs examination.

    • Didn’t you know, neo-liberals are all about privatizing profits and socialising risk and losses!

      • +1
        If it turns a dollar, quickly sell it.
        And they wonder why the budget doesn’t balance…

        • The budget doesn’t balance???

          But weren’t we promised immediate and continued surpluses by our trusted, (self proclaimed) economically superior managers/adult government?

          But didn’t we have a deficit crisis before they came to power and to fix it, Tones and 11ty, brilliantly removed two revenue streams on the big end of town. In fact they decided to pay big polluters for err, polluting…

          Oh yes of course, that’s why…

          /sarcasm

  10. Yes flog it off and let some other mob fix up the mess and rip off the poor old customer.old mall will breath a sigh of relief on getting out from underneath shit pile, then he can start blaming others for the stuff ups.
    You got to hand it to him he is a smooth slippery customer,can sell sand to the Arabs and smile all the way.
    Good news on hfc front,and if its true, i bet we can screw that up no trouble at all and blame the tea lady.

  11. Good one Renai
    This government is not only dishonest they are disgusting, please Australia open your eyes not only has this government got no ideas, got no policies and Emperor Turnbull got no cloths on, he is a fake.

  12. Quoted from the document page 110
    “Over the medium term, the Australian Government should transfer NBN Co to private ownership. It may be desirable to defer the privatisation of NBN Co until the rollout is complete, both to avoid disrupting a complicated infrastructure project and in recognition that private investors are likely to have less appetite for risk during the rollout phase.”

    So they did suggest differing might be a good idea. Privatisation of NBN was always the plan.

    • “Privatisation of NBN was always the plan.”

      I don’t think you could say it was the plan. It was an option.

      Just because Labor allowed for the possibility of selling the NBN doesn’t mean that they would have supported doing so when the time came.

      As I recall, the sale option was to mostly give them some cover for the Murdoch press going berserk over “socialism”.

      • Remember Graham it was Keating who sold off the first part of Telstra (T1), Labor will sell it off add least half but back then we were to have 93% FTTH. And if Labor sells it off they would have offered Australians first choice to buy the shares.

        • Errr, no Keating did not sell any part of Telstra – labor restructured the gov owned telcos but It didnt sell Telstra.

          T1 was in 1997, JWH was PM from 1996 – 2007.

  13. In the same breath you would have to ask why they are looking to privatize metro water.

    Liberals and anyone in bed with them seem to have an unhealthy obsession with privatizing public utilities which should be natural monopolies (thus owned by the government). What do i define as a natural monopoly? Any service or infrastructure that would serve no purpose in duplicating.

    Why do conservatives like to privatize? It makes them look good in the short (election) term by offloading maintenance costs and reducing debt.

    However it hurts the country long term because it is by definition monopolistic in nature i.e. no competition incentive for the owners to make any sort of beneficial advances or upgrades. This is all too evident with Telstra since the 90’s to late 2000’s. They milked the copper infrastructure for every dollar it was worth and then some, disavowing any responsibility for data service reliability in their CSG and the situation was only looking to be resolved when the government bought it back.

    • Actually you are missing the point, the real motivation for libs privatizing public monopoly infrastructure is it gives their rent seeking mates a guaranteed cash cow.

        • Perhaps like FRAUDBAND, they whilst conferring with experts in their field, realised it was dumb (vertically integrated anyway) and didn’t.

          What’s your heroes excuse for knowing it dumb but doing it anyway (twice – Telstra and FRAUDBAND)?

  14. “the Federal Government should “transfer NBN Co to private ownership”, including options for splitting the NBN company into chunks on either technological or geographical grounds”

    If we are talking monopolies, how is splitting the NBN into chunks based on technological or geographic grounds not simply the creation of “boutique” monopolies.

    If Infrastructure Australia is not concerned over the creation of private monopolies, just what is it supposed to be doing apart from making Liberal Party donors richer?

  15. Does it mention in the Doc that the private buyer can only be wholesale ONLY and that there system has to have OPEN access to retail. Even then if they are the sole owner your going to end up with a bunch of mini-monopoly with no incentive to upgrade. The only wholesale competition would be in densely populated areas but for the rest we will be back where we started, instead of one Telstra we would have many. Where do they consider to be the end of the project, when FTTN and HCF is finished or when 90% plus have FTTH considering Turnbull said fibre is the end game. I’m just thinking out aloud trying to wrap my brain around it.

  16. (But in a statement that accompanied the report, he (Turnbull) rejected the immediate introduction of Vertigan’s biggest changes as being too expensive for taxpayers and the budget .
    NBN Co does not appear as an expense on the budget because it is forecast to eventually turn a profit, making it an investment rather than a cost.
    This treatment also hides the subsidy required to build unprofitable broadband in the bush by making city-dwellers paying more for services than would otherwise be required.
    The Vertigan recommendations would see the cross-subsidy made clear, with billions of dollars in expenses placed on the budget.)

    Even Turnbull doesn’t follow Vertigans advice because its flawed so why is Infrastructure Australia following his advice now????

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/nbn-carveup-rejected-as-vertigan-recommendations-sidelined-20141001-10ozxw.html#ixzz40T6zEsbx
    Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

  17. It is believed that the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens would be likely to oppose any privatisation effort with relation to the NBN company,

    The ALP are quick to change their minds then, they had originally planned to privatise their version of the NBN, a case of it’s ‘different’ now because the other side (might) want to do it.

    • Reality it might well be that the NBN Co set up has changed so dramatically from the original Labor version and that’s why there is a change in the Labor Party policy and the Greens. I have no problem with either side selling it off when the second stage FTTH has finished (remember Turnbull said fibre is the end game). If it’s done before then we could end up back were we started.

      • I don’t think either political party would attempt to privatise any of it until it’s all finished, we have a bit of a wait and at least one more election in 2019 before that happens.

        • (Page 110, NBN Co could be split along technology lines: one
          company selling services over the Hybrid Fibre
          Coaxial cable networks (technology developed by
          the cable television industry), one over Fibre to the
          Premises or Fibre to the Node networks, and others
          through the satellite and wireless networks:)
          This what the Infrastructure Australia considers to be finished but as you and I know Reality some of these technologies are only intermediate not the final build, if its left at this stage and sold off to private enterprise you will never see FTTH. So FA by their own works is saying sell it off after the first stage not when its finished after stage 2, read page 110.

          • Selling off HFC especially after a full duplex DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade would have appeal no doubt because it passes the lucrative high density residential areas of our capital cities.

            The ACCC would have to make sure that all RSP’s have wholesale access to the HFC at the same rates for all of them post privatisation.

            The ACCC is all for infrastructure competition (well it says it is) the irony of that is the ACCC approved the ownership of the Telstra and Optus HFC to pass to one company so after the NBN Co have spent the dollars getting the HFC upgraded Telstra and or Optus/Singtel could say thanks for all the hard work and getting all the punters on board, we will buy it back now, not only that we will extend the high speed HFC into adjacent lucrative FTTN or FTTP areas.

          • The main reason the ACCC approved it was because it took the HFC off the monopoly provider and gave it to a company that is required by law to wholesale to anyone.

            So it was an improvement in competition.

          • But if your aim is to try and promote infrastructure competition and there is only one real fixed line infrastructure competition, that is the Telstra and the Optus HFC rollout following each other virtually the same streets, I am not sure allowing ownership of both to pass to just one company helps to promote that aim.

            There will be no differentiation between the Optus and Telstra HFC rollouts after the NBN Co has finished with it, it will be just the HFC rollout.

          • Which Optus got spanked on and promptly gave up. Telstra then also gave up because it had beaten Optus.

            Yeah, thats a win/win for competition :/

          • ROFL alain,

            Add turbo thruster and selling the FAILED HFC networks (YOUR WORDS) would be appealing?

            Your comments just get better (and by better I actually mean more contradictorily imbecilic) especially in comparison to what you were claiming when FTTP was being rolled out…

            GOLD

        • “I don’t think either political party would attempt to privatise any of it until it’s all finished…”

          I dunno alain…

          I get the feeling if old Shorty tried to offload this mish-mash MTM BS pre-completion, he would be dubbed a mismanaging fuckwit for doing so, by MSM.

          But I’m thinking the same MSM, would suggest Mal (or Mitch or Scott) fiscally prudent managers umm, for doing the exact same thing… offloading this mish-mash fuck-up, pre-completion…

          As would you I’m sure.

          Go figure eh?

  18. Perhaps government should own all companies. That has certainly worked well for many the many communist countries around the world.

  19. I’d like to point out that Malcolm has publicly floated the idea of a double dissolution in the event that they get the changes they want on preference voting arrangements into law. That will mean fewer cross benchers to deal with, and an earlier election in July.

    • I don’t have a problem if they make it something like Optional Preferential Voting.

      Forcing people to number the full ticket “below the line” if they don’t agree with the party preference deals (above line) is stupid.

      • Especially considering most of the “micro-party” Senators that have been able to win a seat have been right wing nut jobs. Only exception to that seems to be Ricky Muir who’s actually done a decent job (mostly) for Victoria.

        Nick X has also done a good job for SA but he got to where he is by starting at council level and building his reputation from scratch, migrating to State politics and then Federal.

      • Have you seen the below the line list, you need to take your lunch into the voting booth with you to finish it. :)

        • Yeah, my point exactly mate.

          They need to change it so just numbering 1-5 (say) isn’t counted as a donkey vote, it just means your vote is exhausted on the 5th count.

  20. ..In its document, Infrastructure Australia states baldly that over the medium-term period..

    Baldly or Boldly?

    Delete comment if wrong :)

  21. People forget that Labor promised to privatise the NBN so that the taxpayer could get a return for their investment.

    We have all forgotten the purpose of the NBN and that is why it is failing.

    • They didnt promise to sell it, they made privatisation an option in a vain attempt to get the LNP on side.

      • The didn’t need to get the LNP onside, Kevin 07 got them in easily then, FTTP rollout started 2010, and in 2013 Labor scraped in just with the help of the Greens and a few Independents and the FTTP rollout continued.

        • No in 2013 the majority elected open for biz Tony Abbott and team Shtraya.. bzzt (jeebus, how quickly you forget the best day of your life).

          But granted, it was a most forgettable (and for many voters regrettable) time, so it’s understandable you forgot or intentionally omitted head wobbling, onion boy…!

          So let’s now recall together alain, just how good the Abbott era (even forgotten or intentionally omitted by his former trusty follower, lol) actually was, judged by his accomplishments, listed here…

          1.

          … and we stopped FTTP and returned to FRAUDBAND too.

          Wow… now we are in the minuses.

          You’re welcome.

          • But granted, it was a most forgettable (and for many voters regrettable) time, so it’s understandable you forgot or intentionally omitted head wobbling, onion boy…!

            Hell yeah, even the LPA threw him over, it was glorious :o)

            I fully expect Tone to do a Kevin though, so stay tuned….

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