The future of the NBN, and Australia’s telecommunications network as a whole, is firmly in the balance thanks to the result of the federal election.
Broadband, and its availability across the country, may not have decided the election as predicted. However, with the result leaving neither main party able to form a government, the NBN (National Broadband Network) could now be the key to allowing Labor or the Liberal coalition to find the necessary support to do so.
The story so far: Labor has committed to building the National Broadband Network, a $43 billion project that will bring broadband Internet access to 90 percent of all homes in the country. The Liberal-National coalition is against the plan, arguing that the NBN is too expensive and unnecessary when a $6 broadband backbone could serve the country just as well.
This difference in policy was one of the few clear divisions between the two sides in the election campaign, but even this wasn’t enough to separate the two sides by enough to prevent a hung parliament. With labor now running the country in a caretaker capacity, it comes down to the four independents and one Green to choose which side they want to support in power for the longterm.
The NBN project has been put on hold until negotiations have ended. NBN Co, the government-owned firm handling the project has frozen its tender process and employment drive.
Three of the independent members of the house – Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter – are strongly in favor of the NBN, which suggests Labor will prove victorious in negotiations with the trio. But broadband is obviously only one of the policies that will be discussed before the deciding politicians nail their colors to the mast of either side.
Did broadband sweep one of the two main parties to victory? No. But could it still have a major effect on the eventual outcome? Very much so.
