I think we need to run apprenticeships in the back blocks of China, to be educated into poverty, “Chinese style”.
Can this Country be run into the ground more successfully than it currently is?

Dear Paul,

I watched the Four Corners program on the NBN on
Monday evening. It certainly is a complex issue.
Malcolm Turnbull apparently changed the plan for
the NBN to incorporate a range of obsolete and
second-rate technical solutions, which are causing
problems today. Here's a link that better
discusses the issues involved:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-24/nbn-squabbling-wont-help-anyone/9079172

Under Labor, the NBN plan was pretty good. But they did make three fairly big mistakes:
1) They planned to make a profit and set it up for eventual privatisation rather than letting the full benefits flow through to the customers (though the latter strategy would've been much better for the economy).
2) They failed to consider taking advantage of the existing HFC infrastructure.
3) They failed to consider FTTB even when it would've brought substantial savings.

There was also a fourth mistake, though it was purely political: when cost overruns occurred, they rightly tried to resolve the issues even though doing so caused substantial delays. But they failed to adequately inform the public about the reasons for the overruns and the delays.

And because of that mistake, the opposition managed to fool a lot of the public, including many on this thread, into thinking there was far more wrong with the NBN then there actually was.

Then the opposition became the government and set about ensuring there was as much wrong with the NBN than the public thought - and more!

Not everything they did was bad - they did approve FTTB. But that was really the only improvement. Their buying the HFC networks should have been a good move, but they paid so much for that (considering the condition it was in) that it negated the cost advantage.

And of course they wasted billions of dollars of public money on FTTN. That was worse than all the other bad decisions combined, and arguably worse than discontinuing the NBN.

All but the most rusted-on fans of the Liberal Party know that FTTN is a white elephant, and the vast majority of the problems are Turnbull's fault.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Philip S and runner,
Do you regard every project as a train wreck if there are any implementation problems? Because UIVMM the NDIS isn't doing too badly. AIUI it's on budget and has started to make disabled people more productive.

Thank you Foxy and Aidan, your posts are certainly on the mark. Turnballs needs to fess up and admit as Communications Minister his decision to favour his old buddy boy Murdoch's over rated, and over priced, Foxtel network was a costly political decision, do we need to wonder why. The taxpayer is left billions out of pocket for what is a very poor service.
Labor did make mistakes, but nothing that was going to deliver the inadequate NBN the government is guilty of foisting onto Australia.

Dear Paul,

I'm not sure how they are going to get out of this mess.
And how much it will eventually cost to correct it.
But it certainly needs to be fixed. Also having "cowboy"
installers doing the work does not help either.

cont'd ...

Dear Paul,

I forgot to add - the fact that if New Zealand can implement
the NBN successfully - why on earth can't Australia?