Why the NBN must be kept publicly owned

The NBN has emerged over the past year as unambiguously and undeniably our greatest asset, so it would be an act of extraordinary national vandalism to now sell it.

The National Broadband Network is now unambiguously, unquestionably and utterly undeniably our greatest national asset – absolutely foundational for the economy, and even more generally the broader society and world, of the 21st century.

If there’d been any doubt about that pre-Covid, the events and just the sheer basic everyday reality of the last 18 months – and indeed, what the next six? nine? twelve? months threaten – should have buried that doubt absolutely.

We will be arguing for the rest of our lives and indeed for the rest of time, what we – and who – got right and what we/who got wrong about dealing with the virus.

But the one thing, perhaps the only thing, that is beyond dispute, is that thank goodness we had the NBN up and operating pretty much universally across the country, as we struggled and blundered through 2020 and 2021.

If ever something earned the appellation “Just-in-time” – for something and a consequential reality that was completely unpredictable and indeed literally unpredicted - it was the NBN.

Let me hasten to make a series of points, leading up to one big, big statement.

No, I am not asserting the – Malcolm Turnbull “Multi-Technology Mix” - NBN as built was perfect. Yes, the all-fibre Kevin Rudd NBN would have been much better.

It would be an act of extraordinary national vandalism to now sell the NBN.

But it was also a fantasy, and would have been dramatically more expensive. And indeed just could not have been built.

Have the people who try to claim it could/should have been ever actually had a look at the terrain of Australia and its existing built infrastructure?

That aside, only the Turnbull MTM NBN could have been built as pervasively as it was by March 2020 using so much of the existing Telstra infrastructure: the 3m homes passed by the Telstra HFC cable and existing telephone lines from the ‘N’, the Node, in the FTTN (fibre to the node) part of the NBN.

What we had with the virus, the lockdowns, the work-from home, and all the rest was the greatest and most extended stress test we have ever seen for a piece of infrastructure, and one spread over such a massive relatively unpopulated land area.

You could only reasonably conclude it came through that stress test with flying colours. The best measure of that success is - the ‘gigabyte geeks’, in their ‘moan-to-each other bubbles’ aside – the absence of massive, widespread and unceasing complaint through those last 18 months. My big statement is that it would be an act of extraordinary national vandalism to now sell the NBN into the private sector.

It would require a level of stupidity beyond the so unfortunately norm that runs virulently through politicians of all political stripes, to especially think of selling it now.

Just when the NBN is really starting to get into profitability and into growth.

Just when it is really gearing up on its upgrade path; to move progressively, sensibly and finely targeted from FTTN to more pervasive FTTK (kerb) and FTTP (premises), working off the revenues from the pervasive NBN that would not have existed if we had persisted with the all-fibre upfront fantasy.

And just when interest rates – especially for a government borrower – are all-but zero. In 2020-21 NBN cut its average interest rate on its $24bn of debt from 4 per cent to an arguably still too high 2.8 per cent.

Say you could sell the NBN for $50bn: instead of our government debt galloping towards $1 trillion, it would ‘only’ be $950bn.

Whoopee. We would save all of maybe $1bn interest a year, and hand the future multi-billion dollar profits and control of our core 21st century asset to private investors of which the great majority would be foreign.

Indeed, if we did that, why not just cut out the ‘middle guy’ and just sell it directly to the Chinese government?

Originally published as Why the NBN must be kept publicly owned