{"id":6641,"date":"2020-06-16T02:26:40","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T02:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mclarenwilliams.com.au\/?p=3707"},"modified":"2020-06-16T02:26:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T02:26:40","slug":"high-time-for-government-to-upgrade-its-expectations-of-nbn-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/06\/16\/high-time-for-government-to-upgrade-its-expectations-of-nbn-co\/","title":{"rendered":"High time for Government to upgrade its expectations of NBN Co"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minister for Communications, Mr Paul Fletcher, has made it clear that the government will not provide any further equity or debt funding to NBN Co now that the rollout of the network is largely complete – see AFR ($$$)<\/a>. A total of $49 billion has been provided by the government thus far with NBN Co raising<\/a> an extra $6.1 billion from the private sector through a debt placement in May 2020.<\/p>\n

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With the rollout complete and funding from government now finished what will guide the board and management of NBN Co in its plans going forward?<\/p>\n

From its very beginning and during the rollout period the government has formalised its expectations of NBN Co in a letter to the board referred to as the ‘Statement of Expectations’ or SOE. The last formalised version<\/a> of the SOE is dated 24th August 2016 when the rollout of the Multi Technology Mix (MTM) was getting into full swing. Previous versions had been issued in 2010 (by Labor) and 2014 (by the Coalition to formalise the change to the MTM).<\/p>\n

The board of NBN Co has relied on these SOEs to guide its decision process in its use of taxpayers’ funds to build the network and endeavour to implement a range of government policy objectives, such as :<\/p>\n