Greens – NBN attacks have entered the Twilight Zone

NBN attacks have entered the Twilight Zone – Greens

Media release: Senator Scott Ludlam, Tuesday October 11th, 2011

Criticism of the National Broadband Network has become desperately
unhinged, with the Coalition comparing the project to Cuba.

Australian Greens communications spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam said
Malcolm Turnbull had “entered the twilight zone” by dubbing the NBN ‘the
telecommunications version of Cuba’.

“A large number of experts in information technology and communications
- from the business world and from academia – have praised the NBN as a
forward-thinking and significant development, but the Opposition
continues to launch increasingly bizarre and desperate attacks on the
project.

“The Opposition has pounced on one aspect of a report from The Economist
- regarding the level of public investment in the NBN – but ignored the
overall conclusion which found the NBN is superior to the services in
the United States and the United Kingdom. The ‘Economist Intelligence
Unit’ is fanatically opposed to public investment in anything. If the
‘Intelligence Unit’ keeps publishing these wild-eyed neoliberal rants
they may need to change their name to something else.

“Australia is a vast country with low population density, yet Malcolm
Turnbull continues to insist that we can provide good quality
telecommunications infrastructure to all Australians on the cheap.

“There are 21 million people in this country and they don’t all live in
the seat of Wentworth. We’re not going to deliver world-class
telecommunications to them by cutting corners.”

Media Contact: Giovanni Torre – 0417 174 302