Q&A panellists agree: Politicians have completely screwed up the NBN

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news A trio of independent technology experts on the ABC’s Q and A program last night heavily criticised Australia’s political sector for politicising, lying about, and ultimately destroying the all-fibre National Broadband Network they agreed the country needed to progress its innovative future.

The majority of last night’s session of Q&A focused on the issue of how government could set innovation policy to help transition Australia’s economy to a new stage in its digital development. Delimiter recommends readers click here to watch the full program. The ABC also has a summary of the program here.

However, towards the end of the program, audience member Simon Van Wyk asked panellists why the current Coalition Government was stating that it wanted an innovative economy, while simultaneously actively undermining the development of the NBN infrastructure needed to support such innovation.

After hearing fairly standard responses on the topic from tech-focused MPs Wyatt Roy and Ed Husic, the question was passed to University of Sydney associate professor and quantum physicist Michael J. Biercuk (pictured, above).

Biercuk was scathing in his assessment of the political sector’s handling of the NBN issue.

The scientist said the NBN discussion had “not had a lot of honesty for quite a long time”.

“From the perspective of being a physicist, and someone who worked at [the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency] … it was obvious from the beginning that anything other than fibre would not possibly deliver what was promised,” Biercuk told the audience.

Biercuk said the debate about the NBN was not actually about the technology, but actually about how much public money the Government wanted to spend in building infrastructure.

However, he said, “it’s time to start demanding an honest conversation among politics”.

“It’s not about who delivered it under time or under budget, because nobody does — it’s always more expensive than we expect. It will be expensive, it will be a lot of money, but if the population values it, and we say that, then this debate will stop.”

Entrepreneur and executive Holly Ransom agreed.

Ransom told the audience that rather than going for a “big overarching focus goal and objective” to deliver the infrastructure which Australia would need in ten to twenty years, the current Government was going for the “safer approach”, because “it’s going to be more politically palatable, it’s going to deliver less front page headlines”.

However, Ransom said, this hadn’t “delivered an outcome that really serves Australians and gives us the broadband speed and reach that we need”.

Startup consultant and venture capitalist Sandy Plunkett said the NBN had been “politicised from the beginning, and politicised at the end”.

“That’s just such a tragedy for Australia,” Plunkett said, noting the NBN debate was too fixated on the “bits and bytes” of the technology and not its eventual application “It actually sets us back — it’s part of an inability to imagine what you will do with this thing if you build it,” she said.

Labor MP Ed Husic said Australia was going to an election based on a thing that not many people talk about — the resurrection of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

“We’re not going to an election talking about the things that people really want to see done — the NBN,” he said.

Liberal MP Roy attempted to defend the Coalition’s version of the NBN, stating that it would be deployed much sooner to Australians than Labor’s previous all-fibre version of the NBN. However, he faced sustained questions on the issue from Q&A host Tony Jones.

“Can you put your hand on your heart and say that fibre to the home is not the ideal way to deliver the NBN,” asked Jones at one point. And then later on: “Are you the only copper wire guy in the room?”

Image credit: Still from Q&A, believed to be OK to use under fair dealing

100 COMMENTS

  1. I was absolutely gobsmacked when Tony Jones pulled up Wyatt Roy on that. If only he’d allowed such discussion on the NBN prior to the last election, rather than shutting down the discussion.

  2. ‘Liberal MP Roy attempted to defend the Coalition’s version of the NBN, stating that it would be deployed much sooner to Australians than Labor’s previous all-fibre version of the NBN. ‘

    I’m sure dominoes can deliver uncooked blobs of dough sooner than a pizza doesn’t mean it is worth doing.

      • Uncooked blobs of dough are still missing all the other bits that go into a pizza, kinda of like the current NBN.

  3. It’s as if it has been bottling it up all these years from being silenced on the NBN subject and then unloaded all the frustration in one night.
    Wyatt Roy another victim on Turnbull’s NBN.

  4. It isn’t even about public money spent, because the Libs capped the public spend at $29Bn and Labor at $30Bn. Everything else was to be funded by debt and revenue generated by NBN Co itself.

    • Opposition means one must oppose (everything apparently … because you know mandates and all that jazz). Also means ‘opposite’ and with the NBN vs MTM that’s pretty well what we got. Right nor wrong matters not just opposite!

  5. Again as mentioned elsewhere – taking into account the government nbn statement of expectations and what the nbn is, I see MTM as a perfectly coherent argument.

    If people want to have a discussion, it should be around those things. Instead of a FTTP v MTM argument, make it one about peak funding allowances :-)

      • I disagree.

        The primary statement of expectation (document makes for interesting reading) is around minimizing peak funding. While they can show (claim) MTM offers the best approach to do this – the argument for MTM is perfectly coherent.

        nbn has to follow what is set down in the current statement of objections. Complaining about them when they do this is similar to shooting the messenger – fairly unproductive. If you want someone to blame, look at the politicians. They both changed the direction & refused to come back that when original assumptions proved false.

        • Michael R

          While I do believe most of the blame is the govenment. The fact the PR team goes in to over drive with every bad press or leak document or hiding behind CIC for now disclosing figures the last mob was happy to provide.

          It’s a bit hard not to also blame the messenger when they only give you half the story or even less than that.

        • “the argument for MTM is perfectly coherent.”

          I’ve already addressed this furphy at another thread here at Delimiter…

          But to condense, it’s like looking at a football team on paper and saying, they will do well, but when they get on the field and lose hopelessly, week after week, the on paper scenario, means SFA…

          MTM is that team to some, on paper it may seem coherent (again to some, certainly not me, I always knew and stated MTM would be the fuck-up that it is, but I digress) so regardless to those, MTM did seem coherent to…

          However…the proof of the pudding is in the eating Michael and regardless of the on paper whatever, the pudding tastes like and is… shit.

          But keep dreaming if you wish…

          Cheers.

        • “the argument for MTM is perfectly coherent”

          Coherent only in that it is consistent and orderly…but it makes zero economic or engineering sense at all.
          1. It completely disregards Total Cost of Ownership
          2. It disregards the economic return to the GDP of this type of infrastructure
          3. With the exception of a small burst of minimal gain, it drastically slows down the long term advance of telecommunications and innovation in Australia.

          • Again as said above – read the 2014 statements of expectations. It directs the nbn to minimise peak funding. Total cost of ownership is not mentioned.

          • Agreed…the 2014 statement of expectation makes zero economic or engineering sense at all.

            So to reiterate, the Coalition government gave NBNCo a disastrous guideline to follow, and the NBNCo followed it to the letter…

            I guess if Morrow had been a bit less enthusiastic in his spin, I might cut him some slack…

        • The argument maybe coherent, but it’s totally bogus.

          You don’t choose infrastructure projects because they’re cheap, you choose infrastructure projects because they will satisfy needs for the foreseeable future.

          The MTM doesn’t even satisfy present needs. It certainly isn’t future proof.

          • + 1 Alex

            It’s like building a bridge cheaply and when it comes tumbling down the excuse is, ok, but it was cheaper.

            Yes it was.

        • “While they can show (claim) MTM offers the best approach to do this – the argument for MTM is perfectly coherent.”
          Except that’s exactly where it falls down. Given the last estimate for Labors model totalled <$45b completed 2022, and given the last estimate for Liberals totals <=$56b completed 2020 (CP16) or totals $70b (Joe Hockey most recent figure), the financial aspect of the MTM fails miserably when put under the SoE.

    • Shhh never mention the B in that cBa either.

      That cBa we had to have from the PC, but instead we’ll get our buddies and donators to do it instead.

      :/

    • I agree, if you take into account the statement of expectations, the MTM makes perfect sense.

      But the statement of expectations is the problem. There’s no real “expectation” on the nbn company to cater for expected future needs – quite the opposite. nbn is quite open that they’ll need to do upgrades in 10 years, or even less, but this isn’t a worry because they’re actually directed to focus on the short term (read: next election).

      Obvious example: 25Mbps was always the floor capability for the network, but what was once for those last few % stuck on fixed-wireless or satellite, has now been extrapolated to the minimum for 60%+ of the population. This is clearly not going to be suitable in the long term. If nbn were issued a statement of expectations that the minimum capability is even 50Mbps, for 90% of the population – huge chunks of the network would disappear overnight.

      It’s entirely reasonable IMO to expect nbn to operate in a commercially sensible manner and make their own infrastructure decisions. But if they were actually doing this, they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing – it’s all because they’ve been told to maximise the balance sheet ASAP and don’t worry about what you’ll be paying in 5 years time.

  6. “Can you put your hand on your heart and say that fibre to the home is not the ideal way to deliver the NBN,” asked Jones at one point. And then later on: “Are you the only copper wire guy in the room?”

    Seems copper fanboy knuckle draggers are declining in numbers. Not surprising. In nature inferior species are often dominated and outright decimated by superior species. This is not much different. You can hear the inferiority in Wyatts voice, he knows what he is saying is bullshit and is hoping he can get away with it before he is smacked in the head with facts.

  7. As usual the discussion completely missed the point, though. To quick, too brief, with people unable to cover the subject in any meaningful way. Probably because they don’t understand the economics, and Ed Husic barely got a word in. You could see the frustration written all over his face.

    But at least Q&A touched on the subject. Queue surprise.

  8. So all of a sudden Tony Jones has the gall to speak out about it. Why has it taken him so long??
    The whole thing smells of election stench. Let’s throw in a young LNP cowboy who has limited ability how to defend himself against the questions. Either Wyatt was used as the whipping boy for the LNP knowing the NBN questions were going to be asked. Where was Fyfield lol?? Where was Turnbull? Gutless from the start and the finish. Of course skinny fibre will now be the saving grace for the election, you know because they watched tonights Q&A.

  9. Very impressed with Wyatt Roy. He was advocating for his electorate of Longman and quite rightly pointed out that those stuck on dial up weren’t represented at the table. He notes that the Coalition are delivering for many under-served constituents of Longman. Husic admission of Labor’s mismanagement of expectations was interesting. It would explain why Labor are so policy-free when it comes to the NBN.

    Sadly, the physicist did not think that closing the digital divide, containing costs or timely delivery of services were important.

    • So kingforce the ones on transact FTTN are using dial since NBN are now starting to deploy there while other parts in ACT that has very poor connection are still not on the rollout.

      Well let’s look at cost and timely delivery of services labors FTTP of $44B complete by 2021 vs MTM $56B complete by 2020.

    • Virtually everyone thinks that closing the digital divide, containing costs and timely delivery of services is important. The quote from Biercuk is just saying that the initial capital cost is not the only factor to consider and that delivering any large project according the original schedule and budget is very rare.

      • “MICHAEL BIERCUK: It is not about who delivered it on time or under budget because nobody does. It is always more expensive than we expect. It will be expensive. ”

        Ergo Micheal Biercuk does not care about cost or delay.

        Whereas Wyatt Roy made it clear that getting the NBN out to those who need it does matter.

        “WYATT ROY: These are people who had dial up speed internet and I don’t think there is any point, as a country, saying that you’re going to wait a very, very, very long time for those sorts of people”

        “under the NBN strategic review, [Labor’s NBN] wouldn’t have been completed until 2024 – and saying to them can you wait a long time through an internet wasteland, for a great internet Nirvana because they’re excluded for many years to come.”

        • “under the NBN strategic review, [Labor’s NBN] wouldn’t have been completed until 2024 – and saying to them can you wait a long time through an internet wasteland, for a great internet Nirvana because they’re excluded for many years to come.”

          As opposed to people waiting until 2020 for a subpar connection? Must be a hard decision, 2020 for a network that has to be upgraded within 5-10 years, or 2024 for a network that would be used for at a minimum of 50 years.

        • Kingforce

          “Ergo Micheal Biercuk does not care about cost or delay.”
          neither does the copper supports as going from $29b to $56B ($70b from hockey) or the extra 4 years to rollout out.

          “Whereas Wyatt Roy made it clear that getting the NBN out to those who need it does matter.”
          No they are not try again.

          So the SR said FTTP would be complete between 23-24 and cost $64 or $71B. So that $64B price only $8b more than the mess and 3 years which is only 9 sec faster per premises. So 9 sec faster not to dig up front yards

          But then the SR said it would only cost $41B how wrong was that.

        • Saying that it is expensive or that both sides of politics will fail to deliver on time or under budget is not the same thing as saying that cost or delay don’t matter.
          Stating that it is the same thing is the same thing as saying that you write whatever your political masters tell you to write.

    • “It would explain why Labor are so policy-free when it comes to the NBN.”
      And here I was thinking the NBN was borne from Labor policy…

    • Well you are obviously easily impressed Kingforce… by Wyatt (out of his depth a gullible, naive, young bloke but admittedly doing his best) and fraudband (err a complete mess)…

      The physicist (unlike the minion) realises that MTM isn’t faster isn’t cheaper and we have been had. Yet those who were taken for granted and played for the fools the most, are still here making excuses for them…

      Go figure.

    • Roy might be the member for Longman but he is a member of the government, that’s the rest of us.

      Even Canberra south of the lake has a poor service and Mitch is making no promises even for the allegedly high value added folk who populate the southern parts of the National Capital.

      Roy has admitted MTM is not delivering on being cheaper, so now he has resorted to “faster” (also dubious) but there was no mention by anyone about the WASTED time in re-designing the network and re-negotiating with Telstra.

    • “Very impressed with Wyatt Roy”

      Quelle Surprise…

      “He was advocating for his electorate of Longman”

      Not really…that may have been his rationale for those who are not able to analyze his comments (like the majority of his electorate I imagine), but instead of actually discussing things, he relied on some massive spinning techniques.
      For example, he asked “Do I want all Australians to have the world’s best internet yesterday at no cost?”, then saying he was trying to get past the rhetoric…

      Firstly, our FTTP is very good, but it isn’t even close to the best in the world. Hell, even Singapore has 10Gbps broadband now…

      His performance was politically quite good, but technically quite bad…and as the entire panel said, that is what is devastating our NBN, our economy, and our country right now.

    • Kingy, yes Wyatt Roy is a very impressive young man, he is however on the wrong side of history by supporting MtM.

      It’s a shame he isnt a member of a more centrist party, rather than the LNP which is currently being dominated by out of touch, hard right, religious nut jobs!!

  10. Very impressed with Wyatt Roy.

    Inferior species are quite capable of identifying their own kind. Understanding their own strengths (lack of) and weaknesses is a completely different matter however.

  11. “It’s not about who delivered it under time or under budget, because nobody does — it’s always more expensive than we expect. It will be expensive, it will be a lot of money, but if the population values it, and we say that, then this debate will stop.” – This

    Wasn’t there a petition that was signed by over 200000 people in favour of FTTP but totally ignored my Malcolm Turnbull? So while I agree with Biercuk, the rejection of this petition just indicates that politics for the sake of being different trumps everything else!!

    • According to Reality, that 200,000 must be a bunch of sock puppets and probably only about 10,000 people signed 20 times each, or some rubbish.

    • 270,000 odd signatures! Literally the largest petition in the countries history. Considering most polls only go to about 1-2000 (considered a large enough sample for our population) having more than 10% of the country sign something should have had a bigger impact than 0 :/.

      • 270,000 is a bit over 1%. Still big for a petition though.
        Also, serious polls make an attempt to be a random sample, whereas a petition is just the people who are interested in the topic, so the numbers are not comparable.

      • A petition of over 100,000 in the states *requires* a response from the White House.

        Here, it goes completely ignored by our corrupt politicians.

        • There was a response from Turnbull which was along the lines of “LOLOL DIDNT WE JUST HAVE AN ELECTION? LOLOLOLOL”

          Because apparently, the NBN was the only thing that people were voting based upon in 2013. I didn’t realise it was a referendum on rollout methodology.

  12. I’m actually amazed that some usual suspect posters who can argue over one word, haven’t come here to condense even that and argue over one letter S, as in politician(s).

    And then start the, but they blame game, all over again.

  13. All I can say is shit started going downhill the day Abbott became opposition leader. All of this can be laid right at his feet. He introduced toxic politics in this country and now, rather than all parties working for the country as a whole, passing legislation that is good for the country, all we get now is blame games and legislation to get a party re-elected. Look at the LNP even now, some 2.5 years into their government still turning every debate into a blame game on the ALP. They simply cannot take any responsibility for their own mess, the LNP doubled the deficit but who cares because the ALP left us with a huge deficit. The sheer amount of lies and deception is out of control. Turnbull could have been a national hero by fixing the NBN and doing it properly, for the country, because yes the ALP had messed up in a lot of areas. But no, Abbott wanted it destroyed at any cost, and when he could not do that just wanted something different that would still work initially, no thought on the digital future of the country, just build something that will work for now to stick it to the ALP.
    What we need is for Turnbull to sack Abbott immediately and Australian politics can get back to making our country better.

    • He can’t sack Abbott. He could admonish him but he is still praising him a religiously as politicians give respect to our aboriginal elders.

    • Sorry, that’s *massively* naive. Abbott is a symptom of the political environment,not the cause of it. He is what you get when politicians have to bow and scrape to factions controlled by lobby groups controlled by corporations controlled by billionaires before they even get a look in to run for a seat. The electorate is only represented insofar as they need to not be so obnoxious that they can’t be voted in. Once they’ve been to an election? They couldn’t give a flying #@&£ what anyone but their factions and their layer cake of vested interests thinks. Labor’s factions are mostly run by union bigwigs, so their system isn’t massively better, but it pales in comparison to the blatant conflict of interest, morally bankrupt BS that keeps the LNP’s wheels turning. How this is a legal system of government completely escapes me.

      • Abolish elections and have people appointed to government by lottery ? Would we do worse ?

        • We could revert to real democracy (as the ancient Greeks originally intended), have elections for ideas and policies, not people.
          The moment it was turned into a personality contest it stopped being democracy. It was never meant to be a system for choosing leaders. Of course modern IT systems and the original NBN proposal in particular, are the perfect vehicle for this (sadly utopian) system.

          • With our current mainstream media, and the lack of depth and honesty. Real democracy would be magnitudes worse.

  14. Dear Delimiter,

    Why “Politicians” instead of “Liberal Government”?

    Are you really still that attached to the Liberal party that you can’t bear to call them out on their sabotage of Australia’s future?

    • +1 The ALP + Greens + Nick Xenophon all supported a national FTTP roll-out, it’s only the corrupt conservatives (Lib/Nats/Cuntry Libs etc) that have opposed it so the blame rests solely on them.

    • “Why “Politicians” instead of “Liberal Government”?”

      Because that’s what the Q&A panellists literally said. They blamed the entire political sector, not one side.

      I’m sorry, but do you want me to report what people said or, or spin it along the lines that you would prefer?

      • Renai, correct me if i’m wrong here, but in past articles you have iirc made roughly the same point, rather than applying blame to the politicization of the NBN squarely where it belongs … at Abbott & TurnBull’s feet.

        They are the ones who made it political, yes the ALP made many mistakes along the way but they are not the ones who hired politically affiliated goons to write blatantly fraudulent reports to back their policies. When their policy (market based) failed, they turned to legitimate industry / academia experts to create a national policy resulting in FTTP + FW + Sat.

        • I don’t want to get into a discussion about this here, but in my opinion the blame for the current situation is probably shared about 70% Coalition and 30% Labor.

          • They failed to build an Abbott proof fence around the NBN and properly promote why we needed fibre to the premises not #fraudband.

          • “They failed to build an Abbott proof fence around the NBN and properly promote why we needed fibre to the premises not #fraudband.”

            All they needed to do, was instead of sticking with the weird asymmetrical speeds we saw on ADSL, made everything symmetric and then hyped the living shite out of upload speeds.

            Nothing the Coalition is currently offering can deliver the upload speeds that FTTP can, and that should have always been the focus, not the downloads.

          • A book….. a book…. yea I once had one of them but I couldn’t follow the plot it was all full of names, addresses and numbers.

          • I agree with this…. I’d probably put a bit more in the Coalition’s realm, but the reality is Labor failed to get their message across, despite(or maybe because) the populace being broadly for it.

            That said, ultimately the Coalition chose to ignore the Technical, Economic and Long term benefits, and run with an ideology instead.
            So 80%/20%

      • That’s fine, I was worried you were spinning. If those are the words used on QandA then that is what you should be reporting.

  15. Yet the same people who complain about the cost of the original NBN, probably also concerned about wealthy Chinese investors buying up property, yet the NBN was an ideal tool to innovate and help growth of ideas and business to create more of our own wealth rather than rely on mining income. That is the real issue, the coalition was stuck with lobbyists and supporters who don’t want their industries diminished with alternatives. While ever Australia relies heavily on mining they have a greater say on how the country is run, thus having a lot of power.

    Politics in this country is a real issue. We seem to have no issues investing in large expensive projects/infrastructure for defence, but other than that its a political dog fight over infrastructure, which to be honest is exactly what the government is there for. To provide infrastructure and service to the public.

  16. I can’t think of one Labor politician let alone one Labor leader saying destroy the NBN, if anything they have stated that the current plan will not meet the needs for the future and so are the majority of Australians. The Coalition don’t want the NBN, they want the private sector to supply it but they had no choice but to run with it. The simple fact is that under Tony Abbott the rhetoric turned foul, a person and his lieutenants of note Turnbull who were prepared to take Australian politics and communications to a new low to gain power and he took us with him. I personally despise the Coalition for this, the Coalition have lost their way, they were once liberals now they are shallow conservative bigotes.

  17. ROI is the only thing which should matter.
    The NBN has always been something which was to be built then sold.
    A lower quality system will be undesirable to investors as it will need to be upgraded or at least perceived to need upgrading at great cost. A system which needs little to no upgrading in the near future and has lower ongoing costs will sell for a higher price.
    Build better sell for more, reap the benefit of a better service available to all Australians.

  18. Labor MP Ed Husic said Australia was going to an election based on a thing that not many people talk about — the resurrection of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

    “We’re not going to an election talking about the things that people really want to see done — the NBN,” he said.

    Full marks for not pushing a particular infrastructure barrow, he is correct, we are entering nine years of the NBN, voters just want to see it done and it looks as if Labor NBN policy will basically follow the current MtM model with a promise of reviewing FTTN and the feasibility of replacing some/all with FTTdp.

    Then again that’s what the Coalition will say also.

    The first bipartisan NBN rollout?

    • So you will be voting Labor now will you alain?

      Yeeeesss…

      Oh sorry, you were actually being serious for once not an argumentative childish dick… my apologies.

      Gee, in amongst all of your contradictions, lies and sucking on the Coalition’s, err, umm … err, how do I put it… teat, yes teat… that was the word (well one) I was looking for, who can tell eh?

      I guess you’ll be pleased if Labor throw their hands in the air and give up on real progress and simply are forced to adopt the shitty fucked up Coalition’s inferior, second grade BS, that leaves us (all Aussies including you and your’s) languishing, just so that you can come to Delimiter and poke your tongue out at us all…

      Wow what an adult.

      Well I know I won’t accept that and unlike you who is unwilling to call the Coalition out (having their, err teats, yes teat’s in your mouth 24/7) I certainly will be calling out the fucking Labor party, proving my impartiality, if they try to pass off this MTM fucking BS as policy…

      But let’s see what eventuates, first eh?

      You’re welcome

      • Thanks for putting me straight on that one Rizz, I thought Alain was sucking dick I mean Richard.

    • You wouldn’t have a clue either way, just like the rest of us. Other than FTTP playing a greater part, we don’t have the info on their policy yet.

    • The ABCC will start it off but it will be finished on the resignation of senators Arthur Sinodinos and Angus Taylor for accepting illegal Liberal Party donations. The NBN will be pushed to one side.

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