Conroy says that Terria bid for NBN will not be killed by finances

Stephen Conroy, the communications minister confirmed that nothing has changed by a statement made by the Terria telco consortium that it has been forced to look elsewhere for its national broadband network bid funding.

Michael Simmons, the Terria CEO was reported by AAP recently to have said during an analyst conference that Terria’s finances would need to be reconsidered for the building of the $4.7 billion government national broadband network due to the recent state of the market.

Confidence was restored amongst lenders by the financial stimulus package from the government said Conroy. He said “Banks are now opening their cheque books again. It’s too early to suggest that people will not bid on the basis of what’s happened over the last few weeks. What they’re going to look at is what’s going to happen over the next few months.”

The financial comments made by terrier were, however, quickly targeted by Telstra who said that this Terria’s financial capacity to build the national broadband network was not up to the job.

In a statement David Quilty, the Telstra public policy and communication managing director said “If they don’t have their finances secured, then why are we delaying the build for a moment longer? Australia’s biggest infrastructure project is being held up by a ramshackle outfit that has never actually wanted to build [the] national broadband network.”

He went on to say “Taxpayers cannot afford to face the real risk of having to bail out Terria from financial difficulties a couple of years down the track. It is time for the great pretender to show us the money or get out of the way.”

The possibility of costs for building the network could rise beyond the current estimates due to a drop in the Australian dollar value according to John Stanhope, Telstra chief financial officer. These comments, however, were played down by Conroy who said that they were just part of a “robust debate” before the bid deadline on 26th November.

He told Canberra reporters “On some estimates the costs have apparently come down. Some estimates not that long ago were $25 billion and some of the estimates now are between 10 and 15 [billion]. For those who’re suggesting that there’s been a blow-out in cost, what I’d say it seems to me, on reading of the commentary that in actual fact costs have come down from some of those early estimates.”