NBN analysis almost useless: ACCC chief

Submitted by Seher Dhillon on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 10:11

Graeme Samuel, the chairman of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), has questioned the value of any cost-benefit analysis of the federal government's $43 billion National Broadband Network (NBN).

Competition watchdog chief’s comments emerged as Malcolm Turnbull, the spokesman for opposition communications, is reportedly preparing to introduce a private member's bill for an analysis of the NBN.

In an interview with the Radio National Breakfast, Mr. Samuel said that so many assumptions would be required, which would make cost-benefit analysis almost useless.

Speaking on the topic, he said, "Even the best economists in the world will tell you that if the assumptions are being queried, what you do is you raise a whole range of scepticism over the value of the cost-benefit analysis.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Turnbull said that he was not interested in bringing down the NBN.

At the time of appointment to the communications portfolio, Mr. Turnbull was assigned with a task of demolishing the NBN.

But Mr. Turnbull said he was interested to make sure that the NBN was given full scrutiny and real accountability. He added that he wanted the NBN to be the fastest and the most efficient way to achieve wider availability of broadband across the country.

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Samuel is out of control

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 22:40.

Samuel is continually commenting on issues which are not in his mandate. He is the Chairman of the ACCC not the Productivity Commission, which is the agency being proposed as the agency to do the cost benefit analysis. He should not be saying that a cost benefit analysis is useless in his capacity as the Chairman of the ACCC. To do so is to play partisan politics with probably the hottest political issue in Australia at the moment. I suspect Samuel is so desperate to get a further term as the Chairman at the ACCC that he will do anything to help the Labor party in their attempt to get the NBN through without a cost benefit analysis. Samuel should not be given a further term because he simply does not exercise the political independence which a Chairman of the ACCC should display.