The game is far from over for Telstra’s National Broadband Network proposal, with CEO Sol Trujillo indicating the company is still very much in the race to win the right to roll out the NBN.
Speaking at an analyst conference only minutes after Telstra confirmed its bid would not be considered by the Government’s expert panel, Trujillo said Telstra is prepared to engage directly with the Government and ultimately Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to keep itself in the running.
“The outcome here is not over, at least as we think about it in terms of the options and choices that minister and ultimately the Prime Minister/cabinet have,” Trujillo told the analyst teleconference.
The CEO made it clear that while the expert panel can recommend any proposal to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the Government is not beholden to its advice.
“The RFP process leads only to the minister getting a recommendation. It is open to the Government to re-engage with Telstra if and when it wishes. The minister can talk to whoever he wants to talk to after the Panel reports to the minister. He can decide to take to cabinet whatever proposal he chooses. Cabinet will then make a decision which, based on what has been made public by other bidders, is likely to require legislation to implement. Even after decision and legislation, there’s a lot of time left to run before anyone else starts building in which case any real impact on Telstra – even assuming we don’t respond, and of course we will respond competitively, is years away.”
But regardless of the expert panel snub, Trujillo is adamant no other bidder has the capacity to get the NBN built. “I’m sure that the panel and the staff who’ve decided they want to explore in more detail whatever options they think are alternatives to Telstra and they can do that. We just all need to be mindful of that fact that most of these option are entities that don’t have major staff, don’t have engineering capabilities that are of this order of magnitude, don’t have the trucks, don’t have the people, don’t have the training, don’t have many of resources required just to get started.”
Luke Coleman
