Media release 10:00 am 13/02/2014

The Future Party has prepared a submission to the Senate Enquiry on NBN Co’s Strategic Review, which will be submitted to the NBN Senate Committee today. [Link]

“Measuring the value of the NBN simply using only sales revenue does not adequately capture how significant the NBN will be to economic growth of our country.” said the Future Party’s communications officer and report co-author, Kate Kilgannon.

Shanika Kuruppu, policy officer and report co-author, said “Cost saving is driving the NBN Co to only promise speeds that will likely be too slow at the time of completion. There are many details that are either not considered or have been redacted in the report, such as whether apartments will be connected to the NBN under the new proposed model that uses the cable TV network.”

James Jansson, the party leader, said “The NBN Co has released a report that focuses only on the revenue potential of the NBN. A commercially viable NBN is not the point of the government using taxpayers money to build it. If building the kind of telecommunications infrastructure we need was immediately commercially viable, a company would have already started building it independently.

“The point of the government investing in the NBN is that the immediate value of high-speed internet is beyond what can be recouped in short term revenue. For example, the cost of building the NBN in rural areas will never be justified by the revenue it will generate. The value to our society of having these rural areas connected is great.”

The Future Party submission to the Senate Enquiry can be found here:[Link]

Future Party Background
The Future Party is a political party which is dedicated to thinking of long term solutions to advance our society. The Future Party believes quality of life is improved primarily through technological developments, sourced through a scientific approach to knowledge in the context of democracy and peace. We see innovation, education and economic reforms as key to the success of Australia.

Media inquiries:
Saritha Manickam
Media Officer
[email protected]
0481 373 728

Australians want fast broadband

Creative Commons Attribution: 
Image by James Jansson, derivative of Heart by Matthew Ryan Miller from The Noun Project and Internet by Cindy Hu from The Noun Project