The federal Opposition’s communications spokeswoman, Michelle Rowland, says Labor is considering a writedown of the National Broadband Network (NBN) if it wins the next election. Doing so would make it easier for NBNCo to reduce the cost at which it sells broadband capacity to telcos, but it would also cause a blowout in the Budget deficit. From The AFR:
As Telstra, its shareholders and other broadband retailers hope Canberra will slash the NBN’s $49 billion value to enable it to cut inflated wholesale broadband prices, Ms Rowland said Labor had almost finalised its policy and was not ruling out a write-down because “honesty” on the NBN’s future was required…
