The ALP "arms-length" direction of NBN Co. and the NBN tender

These comments, republished with permission, are from an I.T. consultant and small business owner. They are exactly the sort of person that should be in the Liberal heartland and a vigorous supporter of the Coalition NBN. Minor edits and added emphasis.

... while the ALP did frame the parameters, they only did so as a result of expert advice; the politicians and bureaucrats had zero input on actual cost estimates or technical targets, all they did was choose to take the expert advice they had paid for.

Plenty of governments have been criticised by the opposition for performing an enquiry and then ignoring the recommendations, so why does the LNP have such a huge problem with the advice of experts qualified in the area?

In fact, the LNP have heavily leaned on their FTTN choice when that decision does appear to have been chosen by politicians and their advisors in absence of actual professional advice. 

Otherwise, they would be waving around their own enquiry/professional investigations where actual experts (not partisan "know it alls" who barely understand the debate) have done a thorough analysis of the engineering, costs, time line and finance involved and recommended FTTN as the best, most economically sensible solution for Australia's telecommunications needs. 

Show me the engineers and infrastructure designers who would sign off on that and I'll show you someone who has just ruined their future career prospects...

I'd add that the "Kevin '07" campaign promised $4.7 billion, the 2005 figure requested by Telstra, would be given to the preferred tenderer, a direct cost to the taxpayer with NO returns. The non-political evaluation committee rejected the Telstra bid as it was "non-compliant", then rejected all others as "commercially unviable". Without Telstra involved, any FTTN project was doomed to failure, a situation that hasn't changed, only worsened.

The expert committee, including Economic and Business experts, advised the Government a) an FTTN without Telstra was doomed to failure as having to rent the Copper from Telstra would make it unviable commercially and b) investing in a stop-gap solution and improving an asset they didn't own was a gross waste of taxpayer money.

Contrary to the LNP assertion that the FTTP plan was worked out on a coaster or napkin on a plane trip, it resulted from detailed analysis and advice from a team of relevant, cross-disciplinary experts. It certainly came as a surprise to the LNP and electorate.