Remember the NBN? The Rudd Government’s promise to build a National Broadband Network for Australia so we all had super-fast faster broadband? Of course you do. But do you really care? Probably not, because like pretty much everything Senator Conroy touches, it seems to be waddling in a pile of its own excrement. More precisely, in this instance, Conroy refused to share any details on the report that suggests possible tenders for the network, therefore stopping anyone from scrutinising it. So Ben Grubb over at TechwiredAU decided to try and get his hands on the report using the good old Freedom of Information Act. Sadly, it didn’t work.Originally, expectations were high, after a request came back saying that the Government would release the report for the measly sum of $3,631.99. Being a small, independant publisher, TechwiredAU didn’t have that kind of cash, but iiNet came to the financial rescue, promising to fund the request on the provision that TechWiredAU made the report public.
Everything seemed to be sailing smoothly up until Monday afternoon, when their application was rejected (after the Government pocketed a cool $900 for their time, no less) for some dubious reasons.
The Government has reportedly announced that they’ll be announcing the winner of the NBN tender by March, which gives them less than two weeks. You can (and should) read the whole ordeal over at TechWiredAU – it will shatter any remaining confidence you have in this government’s ability to handle technology issues, but thats not a total surprise, is it?