NBN denies HFC launch in uber-marginal seat breaches Caretaker Conventions

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news The NBN company has denied that its launch yesterday of its new HFC cable network breaches the election campaign Caretaker Conventions, despite the company promoting the Coalition-backed technology in the uber-marginal seat of Petrie.

Labor’s original plan for the National Broadband Network saw the project building a near-universal Fibre to the Premises network around Australia. However, since taking power in September 2013, the Coalition has integrated the legacy HFC cable and copper networks owned by Telstra and Optus.

Yesterday morning the NBN company formally launched commercial services on its HFC cable infrastructure.

The launch means that homes and businesses in the Redcliffe area in Queensland are now able to order an NBN service based on the company’s HFC cable network in the area.

Yesterday Delimiter raised the issue that the launch may breach the Caretaker Conventions which govern the behaviour of government departments and publicly-owned companies such as the NBN company.

The Conventions (available online) place strict limitations on issues such as advertising campaigns carried out during the election campaign, using government premises to promote particular policies. They state, for example:

“Officials should not use agency resources or their positions to support particular issues or parties during the election campaign … Officials need to exercise judgment if they are scheduled to speak at public functions during the caretaker period.”

“In the case of controversial issues, officials should decline invitations to speak. In the case of non-controversial issues, officials may speak, but should explain that the Government is in caretaker mode and that they will limit their statements to factual issues and matters of administration. Officials should avoid publicly explaining or promoting policies during the caretaker period.”

In response to the issue, NBN executive general manager of corporate affairs Karina Keisler said on Twitter that the launch was “not a breach” of the Caretaker Conventions.

Keisler stated that the NBN company had flagged the launch in its product roadmap released in January. “We work to deliver on our targets,” the executive said. “It’s good business.”

Delimiter further questioned Keisler on why the NBN company could not have simply moved the launch ahead until after the election — holding it on Tuesday next week, for example.

“[The] roadmap said June,” said Keisler in response. “Tuesday is July. I’d rather be accused of meeting deadlines than delays.”

“Call me crazy.”

Delimiter further questioned Keisler as to why the NBN company could not have merely issued a statement noting that the HFC launch had been delayed until after the election to avoid breaching the Caretaker Conventions. However, the executive did not respond to the question.

The launch has particular significance in Redcliffe, because the area is part of Petrie, a highly marginal seat held by local MP Luke Howarth only since the last election in 2013, when the LNP MP won the seat by a tiny 0.5 percent margin.

Any swing back to Labor or possibly even the Greens would be likely to wreak havoc with Howarth’s chances of retaining Petrie in this year’s election.

Delimiter has been told that the NBN company is promoting the HFC cable option to residents in Redcliffe, but has not been able to verify if the company is sending out text messages, emails and letterbox drops, as has been claimed by sources.

Other government organisations, such as the Australian Taxation Office, have taken direct action to avoid breaching the Caretaker Conventions during the campaign.

The NBN company has already formally breached the Caretaker Conventions during this election period once; in the publication of an article by its chair Ziggy Switkowski which defended the company’s actions in tracking down whistleblowers.

At the time, Switkowski was formally advised by the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Martin Parkinson, that the article would breach the Conventions. Despite the advice, Switkowski went ahead with publication.

The NBN company has also taken action which could be viewed as partisan during previous election campaigns.

In 2010, for example, then-NBN chief executive Mike Quigley attracted heavy criticism for announcing during that year’s campaign that the NBN network was capable of 1Gbps speeds, and heavily criticising the Coalition’s own broadband policy.

And during the 2013 Election Campaign, the NBN company again came under fire for collaborating with the Labor Government to host a series of launches nationally for the company’s Fibre to the Premises service.

opinion/analysis
The far safer course of action for the NBN company would have been to delay this launch until next week. I would have thought that would have been obvious to anyone. However, much that is obvious seems to defeat the reasoning powers of some at the NBN company.

Image credit: NBN company

62 COMMENTS

  1. Even if they thought it breached the caretaker conventions, as we’ve seen with Ziggy’s article in the Age/SMH – NBN Co don’t seem to care. It’s like they consider themselves above these pesky things…

    Perhaps submit a FoI request for all documents between NBN Co and their lawyers pertaining to this launch and the potential for it to breach the caretaker conventions? ;)

    • Caretaker conventions are not a legal requirement hence breaching them doesn’t break the rule of law :(

      What this is doing though is undoing 100 odd years of convention and ‘good will’ basically stating LPA now consider the convention of ‘caretaker’ defunct so its likely going to be open season next time around.

      • No one is surprised really, the LPA have proven time and again they can’t be bipartisan (hell, half their own party hates the other halves guts and can only just stomach working with each other!).

  2. “Delimiter has been told that the NBN company is promoting the HFC cable option to residents in Redcliffe, but has not been able to verify if the company is sending out text messages, emails and letterbox drops, as has been claimed by sources.”

    I have family who live at Clontarf, and I’m trying to find out if they have heard anything. Waiting for a reply from my mother, but my brother who lives with my parents, hasn’t seen anything from NBNCo. I know some businesses know about the HFC build, so NBNCo seems to be very selective about who they are notifying.

    For note, my parents are currently on Optus HFC, so I’m wondering if NBNCo are leaving notification to Optus for existing customers… (ie taking the easy way out)

    • Just got confirmation from my mother that they haven’t received anything from either NBNCo or Optus. I’ve put a post up on Facebook asking other people I know around Redcliffe if they have heard anything… It looks a bit like NBNCo are being misleading.

      • Sounds like they stuck to the plan, and didn’t overdo the launch during an election. Fine by me.

        Though HFC has been soo long in coming, you probably wouldn’t want to shout about it either!

        • Wouldn’t want to shout about it, wouldn’t want to be on it either. It will become so congested it will be measurably worse than it is now. Mark my words.

        • Though HFC has been soo long in coming

          It’s been around since the 90’s….the NBN HFC is the same thing, repaired, though they say it’ll be better once they actually upgrade it.

  3. “The far safer course of action for the NBN company would have been to delay this launch until next week. I would have thought that would have been obvious to anyone. However, much that is obvious seems to defeat the reasoning powers of some at the NBN company.”

    I disagree. The powers that be at NBN Co cannot be so incompetent. This is a deliberate breach of the conventions in order to buy votes for their political masters.

  4. As I said on the other thread on this, June 30 is a significant date for plenty of business reasons, particularly inside the public service. While they might have been able to delay things until Monday, its pretty common to announce these things WHEN THEY HAPPEN.

    As much as I dislike how the Liberal stooges at NBN run thngs, I still dont have a problem with this one. Its really just a case of sucky timing (or beneficial timing), and pretty tough to prove otherwise.

    People want this to be a breach, but there has been enough written already saying this was going to happen that there simply isnt enough justification to make it stick. Maybe the Lib’s gain some benefit out of it, maybe not (I think they will), but that doesnt make it a breach when it was advertised months ago that it was happening.

    • I agree, they are just sticking to the plan, man! They have a timetable and they are sticking to it…

      It’s not a deliberate breach like Ziggy did anyway, that was far worse IMHO.

    • “While they might have been able to delay things until Monday, its pretty common to announce these things WHEN THEY HAPPEN.”

      Unless your involved in Govt under caretaker conventions (especially mere days from the election). Then its highly unusual (well not so much any more it seems).

      Issue is its an announcement …. that announcement being delayed a couple of days makes 0 difference to the date services went live (could even announce the delay due to caretaker cond.). Its not like there’s a committee breathing down their necks asking. When the announcement was made doesn’t change the live date in any of their reporting either.

      I highly doubt the RSP’s weren’t already informed either (ie its not like they needed said press release to know that the service was live). So the only point of this was to alert public and press.

      Add to this they were specifically warned to consider this issue by the senate committee.

      Sure Ziggy screwed up worse but this was completely unnecessary even if its ‘marginal’ as to if it does/doesn’t.

      • As a public servant, I see it different. Caretaker conventions are to stop you making policy decisions, not operational decision, and this is an operational thing.

        The Ziggy breach, as Tinny said, was far more deliberate. This isnt, people dont need their tin foil hats on this one. This is purely because of June 30 and EOFY deadlines, nothing more.

        If people want to see otherwise it really doesnt matter anyway. Their opinion was decided a long time ago :)

        • “not operational decision, and this is an operational thing.”

          I’m not suggesting they don’t go live on the 30th June or which burb they picked back in January or whenever. I don’t care about the operational side of this issue.

          I’m suggesting there’s no need to announce to the public and press about it until a couple of days after.

          RSP’s were likely informed of this weeks ago (well should have been and said info tied into the CiC clauses).

          The only reason to issue this press release yesterday is to create a bit of media hubbub about it and well they shouldn’t be doing that for any reason mere days from polling day! Especially not after Ziggy’s little stunt.

          • I’m suggesting there’s no need to announce to the public and press about it until a couple of days after.

            They didn’t though. As Renai said in his article, they just did it as a quiet release on their website only, they didn’t email it out like their usual pressers. No doubt they’ll mail it out as a proper release later…and probably arrange for Mitch of Malcolm to come and cut a ribbon or something.

  5. To be fair to NBN, my understanding is they did just post it on their website and didn’t alert journos to the press release. It’s only an extra suburb in the greater rollout. 99% of the public doesn’t care what kind of cable delivers their internet connection.

    I actually found it far more amusing they did it on 30-June. Were they working around the clock to hit the end of quarter / end of financial year deadline? ;) Perhaps it was just a coincidence they happened to be ready yesterday.

    I wonder what ever happened to those police raids. When will they get their documents back (unless they were all marked as government classified)?

    • It would have been smarter to post an “announcement delayed until x July due to caretaker conventions”. Be completely non-specific as to what the announcement was for.

      I mean we’re talking mere days difference here and its not like MTM have been exactly forthcoming about details of anything to date either.

    • > I actually found it far more amusing they did it on 30-June. Were they working around the clock to hit the end of quarter / end of financial year deadline?

      My inner cynic would point out the high likelihood of EOFY bonuses being linked to hitting targets, which launching HFC in June may well have been one…

  6. I suspect the actual media release may be tomorrow…possibly Monday?

    If so, they’ve done it in a way they can point to the web release and say “See we met that target!”, but keep the caretaker issues to a minimum. Pretty sneaky/smart, and nothing like Ziggy’s blatant flaunting of the convention.

  7. “when the LNP MP won the seat by a tiny 0.5 percent margin.”

    This was decided a long time ago. It’s obvious. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
    What part of MTMco hasn’t taken every opportunity to support Liberal objectives above and beyond what anyone would consider acceptable GBE practice.

  8. I’m confused.

    We’ve gone from crowing NBN isn’t moving fast enough to complaining when they actually do something.

    And we’ve gone from HFC is the work of the devil, rotting in the ground, completely inadequate, a waste of money, to something that’ll make the retrograde Liberals look good.

    So which is it?

    • I’d say “B”.

      HFC isn’t “the devil” (unless they totally screw up the refit). I’d also credit the LPA for the change to FttB.

      They should burn in hell for eternity for the FttN change though.

    • The CAN is the one rotting in the ground. FttN is still the worst choice given its range restrictions and the spread of our populace.

      HFC isn’t bad if they owned it already. Issue with it was they bought two of them (second hand) with 70% overlap and neither are fit for purpose currently (100’s of millions have been going into upgrades to get them up to where MTM can use them to cover 100% of the premises in footprint).

      “We’ve gone from crowing NBN isn’t moving fast enough to complaining when they actually do something.”

      I personally don’t have an issue that this area went live on 30th June.

      The issue is the timing the chose to announce this had happened in one of the most marginal seats going around. 0.5% (~7k votes). Add to this there is literally zero downside for MTM to announce this next week.

    • It’s about perception. Telling residents that they’re getting the NBN in their area is usually not broken down by technical delivery mechanism – they just tell you the NBN is now available so everything’s faster and better and rainbow unicorns will spring magically out of the phone socket, all brought to you by those lovely Liberal ministers who have fixed the mess Labor made creating a company that was *never, ever* going to deliver the network it was created to build, because Labor are just *that* incompetent.

      How difficult would it have been to hold off promoting or discussing this for a couple more days? Contrary to Keisler’s claims, they still meet delivery targets if they’ve completed construction but not published PR material about it. That’s a completely false claim from her there (surprise surprise).

      • Heres the thing. They didnt announce it widely, they merely posted on their website. Is that so unreasonable?

        Again, its standard operating procedure to do a media release of some sort when this sort of thing launches. Why do people think it should be otherwise?

        This isnt something they announced a press conference for, and widely crowed about, so they HAVENT promoted or discussed it. It was only the eagle eyes of Renai that picked up on the web notification in the first place.

      • It’s about perception.

        Yep, it’s how the LPA works, they just say shit and let their newsletter (The Australian) run with it.

        “Average Aussie Joe” see’s it in The Australian and says “Hey, it must be true, I saw it in the paper”.

        The trick to it is to be “technically correct”, even if it is just BS.

  9. Everyone with experience delivering projects to forecasts would acknowledge reality: HFC product launch in FY17 would’ve resulted in CP16 targets being missed.

    Quigley missed rollout forecasts EVERY year by a huge margin (yet management bonuses awarded every year), yesterday NBNCo was finally poised to conquer that demon. The fiberartzi looking for every distraction (caretaker conventions, satellite coverage, dismissal of weekly updates, …) rather than accept LNP’s appointment of competent management was a welcome change.

    • “HFC product launch in FY17 would’ve resulted in CP16 targets being missed”

      How does delaying a press release change the live date of actual services? (especially when it would have been a 2-3 day delay)? Add to this that such a delay would be considered normal and not untoward in the government realm (given the election is in mere days).

      Please tell me MTM are not letting their customers (RSP’s) know about live services via press releases? That would have to make them some of the most inept business folk out there!

      “(yet management bonuses awarded every year)”

      So it was awarded merely not accepted given he opted out of said scheme.

      “LNP’s appointment of competent management was a welcome change”

      So you’re saying NBN is in better state now than before? (you are aware the financial hole its in right)?

      • Product launch (required) was accompanied by the following media release (standard practice):
        http://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-releases/Redcliffe-HFC-Launch.html

        It’s the product launch that’s being protested.

        I’ve acknowledge Quigley opted out of the bonus scheme, but also continue to highlight millions awarded in management bonuses whilst failing on all it’s forecasts (set by themselves) by enormous margins. Typically (private sector) we’d be removed for such poor performance.

        NBN is in a much better state today as both RFS and activations demonstrate. It’s financial hole also acknowledged (all models), the policy is a disaster. It’ll get even worst.

        • Say Richard, I hear the LNP party in Tasmania is off to it’s own funeral wake today in Hobart Town complete with lilies and hemlock.

          It seems the Tassie devils dumped the entire lower house reps in the federal erection of 2016. Clearly the expensive to maintain Ziggy/Morrow NBN FTTN technology bribes did not impress the angry testy natives in the Braddon electorate.

          In other news dated July 1st, 2016 :-

          “AUSTRALIA has clawed its way up the world broadband speed rankings, with a new report showing the country now ranks 56th in the world for internet download speeds.

          But the news, coming on the eve of the federal election, is far from impressive, with networking firm Akamai Technologies noting that Australia’s speed boost was “the smallest gain” in Asia Pacific, and the country’s ranking had plummeted from 30th place just three years ago.”

          Link: http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/nbn/australia-claws-its-way-up-the-world-internet-speed-rankings-but-the-report-card-remains-dismal/news-story/fc8dde4ec4a60629d1f2195978061c61

          You dig your own grave, with your own self creative luddite misinformation.

          Perhaps an old miniprint 425 TDD display analog Hayes POTS modem is all the Internet speed, you will ever need. LOL

    • Let me fix that for you so we can acknowledge reality:
      Quigley built a 0 to 5000 persons business with offices all over Australia from the ground up, along with trying to hit huge targets.
      Morrow was handed the already built business with all the ground work (hard work) completed.
      Current NBN targets are laughable at what they had left to do (keep on rollin), with being paid 3x the amount Quigley was handed.
      All we have to do is look at Morrow & Ziggy’s failed past to see how “competent” they are.

      • @s it’s not difficult to build a business of 3.5k personnel when handed billions of taxpayers money. A functional company is the challenge, where Quigley fell short.

        Quigley and his management team set the targets in the CP. If unrealistic he is reasonable, yet despite the actuals showing monumental failure he maintained his mantra of on target and budget.

        We judge management by their performance. Actuals much kinder to the new management. Plenty of work still to do (some 20% complete), passing each month more that total under Quigley’s tenure.

        • “it’s not difficult to build a business of 3.5k personnel when handed billions of taxpayers money”
          And there is Richard’s down fall (along with many others). As history has shown us throwing money at things doesn’t always fix the problem.
          Building a 5k personnel business along with the foundations in one of Australia’s most daunting areas (Australia’s telecoms) which no private company wanted to touch (you repeating yourself that private companies were just about to ((honestly they were just about to!)) step in and build Australia a better telecoms, doesn’t make it fact) is indeed a very difficult task. Not to help the Coalition & media at every turn trying to destroy (which they did) the NBN at every decision Labor made with it.

          “We judge management by their performance”
          Which is why Morrow & Ziggy should be judged harshly with such tiny targets given to the company on a roll-out that was rolling out, already set in place, ready to go, to use your words “not difficult” to keep going.

          If we judged management by performance, then Turnbull should be sacked for hiring Morrow & Ziggy (see previous “management performance” history), as he seems to have missed their previous performance reviews.

          • @s despite the billions thrown at him Quigley didn’t form a company able to “fix the problem”. Measured by his own forecasts the company failed.

            Telecoms isn’t daunting when handed tens of billions and a govt mandated monopoly. Whilst the scale was of the project was large, delivering third party technology (widely deployed in other markets) using well established techniques is not that complicated.

            Conroy/Quigley had many options, an overestimation of their capabilities resulted in many failures (contract model, inexperienced contractors, exclusion of Telstra, Fujitsu, refusal to acknowledge underperformance, …).

          • The same can be said with current NBN powers to be.
            Despite the billions being thrown at the NBN on the MTM course, the targets are so low (and barely making them, still in prediction mode at the moment). The excuse for these low targets? Billions have been thrown towards Morrow & Ziggy, company foundations, contracts, government hurdles have already been done for them. What are they doing? Why is a FTTN taking longer to install then a FTTP (160 days vs 190). Satellite was already in place, second satellite contracts were already signed.

            “Whilst the scale was of the project was large”
            Wrong, the scale of the project is unprecedented in Australia’s infrastructure history, that makes it larger then large, that makes it the biggest we have ever seen in our history.

            Current NBN powers to be have refused to acknowledge the underperformance of their current technology of the node, not only in installation costs (still require a site visit every customer connected), installation time (160 vs 190) and inexperience contractors that work with copper (overseas job advertising).
            It seems NBN is having a lot of trouble trying to hire a hand full of contractors with overseas advertising.. times that by 5000.
            All this and we haven’t even gotten into the terrible performance some customers are achieving speed wise on the node.

          • @s despite the billions thrown at him Quigley didn’t form a company able to “fix the problem”. Measured by his own forecasts the company failed.

            We’ll never know, he only got two years of actual FttP rollout time, and even that ran into delays mostly due to Telstra.

        • “yet despite the actuals showing monumental failure he maintained his mantra of on target and budget.”
          Since 100% blowout achieved by the Libs, on the other hand…

      • “Morrow was handed the already built business with all the ground work (hard work) completed.”
        Don’t forget, they’ve also halved their own targets – twice.

        • Don’t forget, they’ve also halved their own targets – twice.

          But HC, didn’t you know, that’s how “competent managers” do it so they can give themselves greatly increased bonuses!!!

          • If only Quigley saw fit to ‘revise’ his targets by half once more, NBNCo would have blown them out of the water and no one would have any right to complain about it. *rolls eyes*

          • If only Quigley saw fit to ‘revise’ his targets by half once more, NBNCo would have blown them out of the water and no one would have any right to complain about it.

            He should have just dropped them 75% like Morrow did. Apparently, that’s no problem according to the parrotts…

    • Media release has nothing to do with construction or ready for service dates, that’s a strawman.

      Quigley donated his salary to charity, how you can keep posting such bald faced falsehoods and not be banned is beyond me.

      • Product launch does, that it was accompanied by a media release immaterial.

        Quigley donate his FIRST year’s salary to charity.

        I don’t know why I’m not banned either. Perhaps not everyone requires their groupthink safe spaces;-)

        • I don’t have a problem with the fact that you have a different opinion, it’s your deliberate misinformation I object to. If your argument and position was that strong it would stand up on its own merit – the fact that you have to resort to underhanded trickery speaks volumes.

          • Clearly you do have a problem with different opinion (see Friedman).

            The “deliberate misinformation” (underperformance whilst awarding management bonuses) you claim are matters of historical record. You don’t agree with them being spoken about (calling for their suppression).

    • @Richard – “Quigley missed rollout forecasts EVERY year by a huge margin”

      The commercial rollout began in March 2012…what you are saying is that he missed one forecast (2013)?

    • ” management bonuses awarded every year”
      You know for a fact how much of a lying scuzzball you are at this point.

      “rather than accept LNP’s appointment of competent management was a welcome change.”
      How’s that SR13 target of 25Mbps to 100% of Australians in 2016 going?

  10. So, NBN’s failure, under Turnbull, ziggy & Morrow, to meet Turnbull’s 2013 PROMISE of everyone having a minimum of 25Mbps down by 2016 isn’t a HUGE failure to meet the target?

    @ Richard, don’t forget to wear your LNP shirt tomorrow while handing out the now to vote cards, because as a long time reader, it’s so obvious that you’re an LNP shrill

    • Hi Cyko :)

      –> Shrill definition; high-pitched and piercing in sound quality.

      Try “Shill” …. Shrill is the high pitched whineyness I imagine their & other Lib shill voices to sound like as I read,(or skim) regurgitated posts of theirs.. hehe :P

      Later, RIPP.

  11. Ahh Petrie. The electorate where FttP was being rolled out and then canned by the LNP for vastly superior Copper and HFC. I wouldn’t claim this as a win for the Coalition if the electorate was expecting FttP.

  12. ** Dinosaurus nettus has spoken! **

    No one cries for a Liberal voter,… not even a Liberal voter!

    (Hey: checkout Julie Bishops electorate… try living in WA and meeting these losers at the pub!)

  13. I live in Clontarf and am currently on Optus HFC. I received a letter from NBN, letting me know that the NBN installation would be installed no later than 24.6/2016. On 23/6/2016, I rang NBN to double check if this was still the case. On speaking to someone at NBN Co, I was told that that could not give me any installation dates even though their Rollout Map shows ‘Service is Available’.
    On contacting Optus as advised on the site, they know nothing ?
    Confused ?.

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