NBN: Turnbull all bull!

With the Abbott Government not only breaking repeated election promises around the National Broadband Network (NBN) - but also this week engaging in unconscionable hypocrisy about its planned expenditure of $41 billion without appropriate oversight - it's important that even the most jaded political observer take note.

The hypocrisy revolves around Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull's decision to issue a new Statement of Expectations (SoE) to NBN Co, the company charged with rolling out the next-generation broadband network.

In doing so, Turnbull has completely changed the architectural and strategic direction of the NBN - without waiting for the results of the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) that he commissioned in December, putatively to guide his decision about the best path forward for the project.

NBN Co under Labor suffered near continuous browbeating by Turnbull during his nearly three years in opposition, with him repeatedly questioning the credentials of its management and questioning at every opportunity Labor's decision to begin the project without conducting an extensive cost-benefit analysis (CBA).

In October 2009, Turnbull called Labor's NBN a "no cost-benefit analysis, no financial analysis required, $43 billion National Broadband Network thought bubble". A year later, he argued in an SMH editorial that a CBA was "essential" to ensure that any future NBN would deliver adequate returns to justify the expenditure of what was then $43 billion for Labor's fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) model.