update A taxpayer-funded conference to be held next month on the future of fast broadband will cost $528,000, documents reveal.
Hailed last week by the Federal Government as a "major forum", the Realising Our Broadband Future meet up will bring together Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, US web pioneer and now Google evangelist Vint Cerf, academics and the NBN Co's chief, Mike Quigley, to discuss what new applications will be possible in a high speed broadband world.
Documents available on the Federal Government's tender system revealed that the two-day forum, to be held on 10 and 11 December at the University of New South Wales, will cost over half a million dollars to put on. The contract was awarded to Paddington-based events management firm, Event Planet.
The forum follows a similar one organised earlier this year by the Department of Communications Broadband and the Digital Economy called Ready for Digital TV, which cost around $700,000.
Shadow Communications Minister Nick Minchin said the latest forum was a cynical attempt to cover the government's alleged cart-leading-the-horse approach to the National Broadband Network (NBN).
"The Rudd Government has recklessly committed to spend up to $43 billion of taxpayers' money on an NBN and now wants to hold a summit to talk about how it might be used. You would think they would have worked this out beforehand," Minchin said in a statement.
"This is nothing but a cynical marketing exercise and all it does is highlight the fact that Labor's handling of broadband policy is like watching a slow-motion train wreck in the making.
"This is straight from the Kevin Rudd handbook; hold another summit to disguise the fact he has failed to actually deliver a new broadband connection despite his election promise to do so."
In emailed comments, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said it was clear from what he said were Minchin's "uninformed comments" that the Shadow Communications Minister had no understanding of the "truly remarkable applications that will be enabled in a superfast broadband environment".
"These applications promise transformational opportunities for education, health, business, government and the community, and will help drive new productivity and growth for Australia's future economy," said Conroy. "This landmark forum will highlight the opportunities and help our research community and commercial sectors plan for the digital applications, services and business models of the future."
This is absolutely absurd. Can we please ensure the Minister is invited to join his friends in Treasury at ANU's 2010 intake for Economics 101?
Why are we investing in the creation of marketing strategies for what remains a product with; 1) no tabled costs, 2) no funding model, and 3) no 'demand' as a function of 'price' forecasts?
Let's use the retail analogy to highlight the ineptitude of this Minister and his waste of another $0.5M. Remembering the NBN Co. will be strictly limited to wholesale activity (swaying neither consumer trends nor the app's and services it supports), this forum takes on a flavour akin to a shelving manufacturer (i.e. NBN Co.) meeting with a potato chip supplier (Google) to discuss the optimimum shelf specs for the sale of chips - but all without consulting the retail outlets (ISPs), which own the customers!
Imagine the retailer is Woolworths: would a shelf maker commit design resources and to a production run for all Woollies' store locations on the promise of the chip supplier, but without an order from Woolworths itself? To revisit the funding question, would any investor allocate their hard earned into the hands of such a management team, regardless of the quality of their shelves?
And onto the waste of $0.5M; do we think Woollies wouldn't consult the shelving manufacturer on the 'new chip shelf specs' at their own expense unless there was little in it for them?
Why oh why are taxed Australians paying for something the ISPs would gladly talk Mr. Squigley through pro-bono? Or can we decipher from their non-attendance that they've already accepted there actually wont be much in it for them afterall?