Communications minister publicly confirms he sought resignation of board members and will set new management team to review

The Coalition says it intends to unearth the “unvarnished facts” about Labor’s multi-billion dollar signature infrastructure project, and new management at NBN Co will spearhead a 60-day strategic review.

The communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, confirmed publicly on Tuesday that he sought the resignations of NBN Co’s Labor-appointed board members, although he contended that requiring the incumbent directors to resign was not a criticism of them as individuals.

Turnbull said the new government wanted “complete flexibility” to implement its policy agenda in broadband – and was seeking better “chemistry” on the board.

He said the cabinet would shortly appoint a new management team at the organisation, and it would subsequently drive a 60-day “strategic review” focusing on establishing the true costs and timeframes for the NBN project.

Turnbull gave an explicit signal that the policy the Coalition took to the election in September was not the last word on broadband policy. He said the new government “was thoroughly open-minded” and “agnostic” about technology.

The Coalition considered asking the Productivity Commission to do the review, but dumped the idea because of concern there were too many linkages between personnel at the commission and the NBN project. Peter Harris, the Productivity Commission chairman, previously served as secretary of the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy under the former Labor communications minister, Stephen Conroy.

Turnbull said the purpose of conducting the strategic review inhouse was to ensure the board and NBN Co management owned the conclusions, and implemented them.

He said NBN Co should be as transparent as a publicly listed company. He suggested the company would produce weekly statistics on the progress of the fibre rollout. “We want from NBN Co nothing more or less than the plain unvarnished facts. I’m interested in the true news, what’s actually happening,” Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.

“This strategic review is going to be a very, very rigorous and objective exercise in getting to the facts of the matter. The goal of the strategic review is principally the following: to ascertain what it will really cost in dollars, and what it will really take in years and months to complete the project on the current specifications; and then to assess what options there are to reduce that cost and time by using different techniques and different technologies.”

Labor has branded Turnbull’s move against the board vindictive – but the incoming communications minister points to examples of underperformance and cost blowouts in the project as justification for the new broom. On Tuesday, Turnbull said the NBN’s rollout target for June 2014 had already been revised down by almost half, only four months after the forecast was made.

Turnbull declined to comment publicly about the personalities he intended to bring into NBN Co, but the widespread expectation is that former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski will be the new executive chairman.

In the interim, the incoming government has drafted a statement of expectations for NBN Co, requiring it to meet its contractual obligations while the strategic review is completed.

The statement allows NBN Co to deploy a “wider range of technologies”, including VDSL, in the rollout.

“The interim statement provides NBN Co with the flexibility to use a wider range of technologies to connect businesses and homes to the network,” the document issued by Turnbull says. “For example, this will allow NBN Co to trial the latest VDSL technology to deliver superfast broadband to homes and businesses in multi-dwelling units such as apartment blocks.”

“A key priority will be to reduce the backlog of 66,000 premises passed by the NBN fibre network which cannot currently obtain service. This includes the majority of apartments, schools and businesses in areas where the fibre network has been rolled out.”

Turnbull said he expected the review would lead to NBN Co adjusting the timeframes for the rollout, and to revised costs for the project. “The NBN rollout to date has repeatedly missed its targets.”