National Broadband Network to face audit after revelations of $30 million branding spend

THE National Broadband Network will be audited after revelations $30 million was spent on marketing including almost $500,000 on beanies and vests.

Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull, during Question Time in the House of Repres

KEVIN Rudd and Stephen Conroy’s bungled National Broadband Network dream faces a formal audit as new documents confirm the organisation asked taxpayers to spend nearly $500,000 on beanies and high-vis clothes.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has appointed Bill Scales, a former Productivity Commission chairman, to report to the government on Labor’s decision making processes in the early days of the NBN.

The announcement comes as new documents reveal the extraordinary cost of the NBN’s marketing and branding.

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As Communications Minister Senator Conroy was frequently spotted at NBN launches kitted out in high vis NBN vests and now the substantial cost to taxpayers of the branding exercise can be revealed.

After launching a forensic examination of NBN expenditure since taking office, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has revealed the organisation spent $30 million on hundreds of “communications and public information’’ projects.

The $30 million expenditure over 2009-13 on marketing included opinion polling, discovery trucks, market research, focus groups, marketing and corporate communications, public and community relations, events management, media training and advertising. One company, called Bangers and Tash, a boutique creative agency in Sydney, secured contracts to organise the production of branded NBN polar fleeces and beanies worth $152,000 and high vision shirts and vests worth $321,000.

Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull, during Question Time in the House of Repres

“This shows the triumph of spin over substance under Labor. Stephen Conroy set new records for appearing in high-vis vests, to give the impression that progress was being made on the network,’’ Mr Turnbull said.

“But the truth is very little was actually done. To spend $7 billion to get to less than 3 per cent of the country is a shameful legacy.”

Senator Conroy was contacted for his response to Mr Turnbull’s claims and declined to comment.

Despite the $7 billion taxpayer-funded spending spree on the NBN, the rollout has extended to just three per cent of Australian homes and businesses. Only a fraction of these premises — 154,000 — have an active connection.

Mr Turnbull will announce today an new government audit to cover the early stages of the NBN project from April 2008 to May 2010, when the implementation study for the National Broadband Network was released.

Bill Scales, a former Productivity Commission chairman will lead the investigation into the “public policy process undertaken to support decisions by the Australian Government.”

This will include an examination of the advice and processes that led to the establishment of NBN Co, the origin and basis for NBN Co’s mandate to run fibre to the premises (FTTP) to 90-93 per cent of Australian premise.

It will also examine any cost benefit analysis and or independent reviews of the project.

Mr Scales’ recommendations will include suggestions for future actions that should be undertaken by the Australian Government when considering major projects / reforms such as the NBN.

The audit will access legally available information — which is not expected to include cabinet deliberations.

Last year, the new NBN co chairman Ziggy Switkowski said that there was “very high resistance’’ to admit that the NBN was failing to meet the promises in the company’s corporate plan.

``When I arrived and had a look at what was happening, it did not resemble anything like it was in the figures,’’ he said.

“There is a kind of ferocious determination to say that what was in the plan and what was in the headlines of two years ago must have been right, and that they must still be right.

``The fact is they are not. They were not right then; they are not right now.’’