What new and old media are saying about Malcolm Turnbull's train wreck of an NBN

Gizmodo, 27 November 2017

ITWire, 28 November 2017:

For months now, we've been told that fast broadband would be arriving sooner because of the change in technology that the Coalition Government decided upon, with HFC cable and fibre-to-the-node being the saviours of the project. Now that dream is unravelling.

The brakes have been well and truly slammed on by the NBN Co, with delays of six to nine months in getting any HFC connections up.

The Telstra HFC cable network is being shared by the NBN Co, Telstra and Foxtel; the NBN signal travels at a low frequency, the other two at higher frequencies. Apparently, at lower frequencies the signal does not travel all that well.

The equivalent of bandages will have to be applied. But the long-term solution will be to replace cable with fibre.

What was to have been a marathon — fibre-to-the-premises for 93%, satellite and fixed wireless for the rest — was attempted to be turned into a sprint by the agile and innovative Malcolm Turnbull.

Alas, the dream of the silver-haired visionary now seems to be dead.

His estimate of $29 billion, made in 2013, has doubled to $56 billion. His deadline of 2016 has blown out by four years. Even then, you do not know whether it will all be done.

And judging by the slow speeds on offer, the moment NBN Mark I is over, Mark II will have to start if Australia does not want to slip further into the dark ages. We are already behind countries that people here have not heard of.

All the documents that Turnbull put up on his website, claiming that the original plan would cost nearly $100 billion, have now disappeared.

Indeed, the man seems reluctant to even talk about the NBN. But that is par for the course for a politician who seems content if he can last the next 24 hours in his job. His motto seems to be taken from Holy Writ: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Ignoring the advice of technically competent people, Turnbull sought to sell Australians on a plan that promised build speed and less expense.

With three years still remaining for the scheduled completion, it looks like the contents of a box of free-range eggs is all over that handsome visage.

But hey, why should he bother? After all, to use the magic-pudding language of NBN Co chief executive Bill Morrow, the HFC delay is merely "NBN Co taking (its) customer experience improvement programme to new levels".

Macro Business, 28 November 2017:

Customer anger over poor service has forced the Turnbull government to halt its broadband rollout to more than 250,000 households, fuelling growing concerns over the use of pay-TV cables to deliver high-speed internet.

The temporary delay means the NBN is certain to miss its revenue goals for this year and will struggle to meet its customer connection target by the time of the next election, turning the broadband rollout into a growing political dispute.

At issue is the use of hybrid fibre coaxial cable, or HFC, to offer broadband over the lines built in the 1990s to deliver the Optus Vision and Foxtel pay-TV networks. Malcolm Turnbull was a leading advocate for the use of existing HFC connections, upgraded over time, to deliver the NBN to millions of households more quickly than laying new ­optical fibre to every home.

NBN Co chief executive Bill Morrow yesterday put an immediate stop to new services being sold over the HFC footprint, conceding that the suspension was necessary to ensure homes could receive a reliable, quality service over the cable. The decision will see 250,000 homes that were set to receive their NBN connection via HFC put on hold for the next six to nine months.

ZD Net, 28 November 2017:

The pause in rolling out hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) by the National Broadband Network (NBN) is due to technical issues caused by HFC not being as mature a technology as fibre, satellite, and fixed-wireless, according to Communications Minister Mitch Fifield.

"What we have in the case of HFC is some technical issues. HFC as a technology isn't as mature as fibre to the node, or satellite, or fixed-wireless," Fifield said during Radio National Breakfast on Tuesday morning.

"With those other technologies in the initial rollout, there were issues to be worked through. That's the case with HFC, there's no problem that's been identified that can't be fixed, they will be fixed, and HFC is a terrific technology. It can get gigabit speeds, people will certainly be able to get 100 megabits per second.

"In the United States, most people who are on broadband are on the HFC pay TV cable network."

Despite referencing the prevalence of cable broadband in the US, however, Fifield's statements that HFC is not as mature a technology as fibre flies in the face of the fact that US providers have been offering cable broadband access since the late '90s.

Telstra additionally rolled out its HFC network in Australia around the same time.

Shadow Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has meanwhile argued that the delay could cost between AU$420 million and AU$790 million "based on analysis previously approved by the NBN board".

While NBN CEO Bill Morrow on Monday said it is too early to calculate such costs, Fifield remained adamant that the network issues can be repaired without the network having to be abandoned.

Via @SabraLane, 28 November 2017

The Australian, 27 November 2017:

TELSTRA is assessing the damage to its revenue forecasts after the company rolling out the national broadband network abruptly altered its plans.

The trouble-plagued NBN Co announced it was halting parts of the rollout that used the telco’s pay-TV cables.

Telstra is now working out how much of the $2.5 billion it was tipped to receive from NBN Co this year will be delayed.

NBN Co wants to connect about three million Australian houses to its network over the cables Telstra uses for Foxtel and broadband.

But it halted use of those cables yesterday amid a growing number of complaints about dropouts and other problems from customers who had switched to the NBN.

Gizmodo, 27 November 017:

As pointed out by Shadow Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland and Shadow Minister for Finance Jim Chambers, a seven month delay in HFC activations profile would have a $1 billion impact on rollout funding.

"On 24 May 2017, the Senate had NBN confirm the $1 billion figure was based on a seven month delay, for three million services, with an average revenue of $47 per month," the pair said in a join statement released today.

"It has now been revealed that problems with Turnbull's second-rate NBN could further delay the HFC rollout by 6 to 9 months for up to 2.5 million premises."

“Real name of of the National Broadband Network is No Bloody Network”

Anon

And the Abbott-Turnbull- Morrison Government's NBN copper saga continues......

 

One of Telstra's old pits being used by the NBN
IMAGE: Coast Community News, March 2016

Now that so many old Telstra copper-laden access pits which connect households with NBN fibre-to-the-node broadband technology are currently under flood water up and down the coast of New South Wales, it might be time to consider how all this water is impacting the integrity of the copper components in these concrete pits and the effect that this might have on current and future access to the Internet and modem-connected landlines.

Because it seems copper is still king for NBN Chair Ziggy Switkowski and his seven fellow directors.

The New Daily, 21 March 2021:

The NBN Co’s decision to continue to purchase and roll out ‘obsolete’ copper cabling over ‘future proof’ fibre-optic cables is costing Australia, telco experts say.

New figures show NBN Co has purchased 55,911 kilometres worth of copper cabling for use in the national broadband network’s footprint – enough to wrap around Australia twice.

The government-owned business has replaced 6,300 degraded copper lead-ins on fibre-to-the-kerb (FTTC) with brand new copper, it was revealed this week.

RMIT associate professor of network engineering Mark Gregory slammed NBN Co’s continued use of copper as “wasteful”.

The admission by NBN Co that it had purchased 55,911 km to boost “obsolete” copper-based connections including fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and FTTC “is shocking and should be met with outrage by taxpayers who will have to pay again, in the form of higher broadband plan costs, to have the obsolete copper based technologies replaced over the next decade,” Dr Gregory said.

“The Coalition’s NBN plan has become a national disgrace. The NBN rollout, which in reality has yet to be completed, is beset by cost and technology problems and the list of the government’s failed promises growing by the month.”

The copper figures were revealed in the Senate in response to Questions on Notice, and were 57 days overdue.

The Morrison government and NBN Co have faced criticism for being slow to answer Questions on Notice.

Last month, overdue responses to QoNs revealed that NBN Co had paid out more than $77 million in bonuses during the midst of the pandemic – nearly twice as much as the previous year…….

The NBN rollout was officially completed last year, but the Morrison government has already conceded that the many of the network’s copper-based connections already need to be upgraded.

In September, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher promised to pour more than $3 billion into upgrading millions of copper-based connections to fibre-to-the-premises by 2023.

This is on top of the cost of the rollout, which is estimated to have exceeded $57 billion…..

Labor’s shadow minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, accused Liberals of deceiving the public over the cost of fibre.

“We now know the Liberals knew back in 2013 that deploying fibre was dramatically cheaper than what they claimed in public,” Ms Rowland said.

“Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Fletcher kept this a secret and spent eight years knowingly misleading Australians to justify their copper mess.

“With waste and dishonesty as far as the eye can see – is it any wonder the cost of their copper NBN has gone from $29 billion, to $41 billion, to $49 billion and now $57 billion?”…..

What I learnt about NBN Co this week

It is easy to lose track of what federal government-owned NBN Co is up to these days, so I did a quick search of mainstream media reports and the company website. This is what I found.

In the nine months up to 31 March 2018 NBN Co listed $1,413 million in revenue, up from $665 million for the same period last year. Nevertheless it appears the company is operating at a loss.

NBN Co’s CEO earns est. $3.62 million per annum — approximately six times more than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Million-dollar salary packages are paid to another four top executives.

More than 480 of NBN Co’s staff are on $200,000-plus salaries and 120 earn more than $300,000.

NBN Co paid $66 million in bonuses to its staff last financial year.

In February and March 2018 the company’s  three top executives spent almost $40,000 on business-class flights and accommodation during a trip to Spain to attend a conference.

Although NBN plans are advertised with speeds such as 25Mbps or 50Mbps, performance on fixed wireless drops in the evening and the CEO has stated that "We don't have the money to invest in this to take it above 6Mbps” – which means that many customers cannot get a decent image when streaming videos or live entertainment.

NBN Co has fobbed off customers 80,000 times since July last year – nine per cent of all scheduled appointments.

There were at least 42,510 formal complaints made about NBN services from January to December 2017.

More than one third of NBN users wish it had never happened, according to new research by finder.com.au released on 8 June 2018. Only 43 per cent of respondents still on an ADSL or cable Internet connection said they were looking forward to switching to NBN.

The basic NBN service is being redefined and entry-level retail prices for NBN broadband are set to rise.

The NBN roll out debacle continues on the NSW North Coast

This is what NBN Co said in its May 2014 Fixed Wireless and Satellite Review: Final Report about the planned 'fast' broadband roll-out in regional areas:

The challenges of geography and population density mean that outside of city centres, NBN Co has planned a combination of interwoven fixed line, fixed wireless and satellite technologies.

Over ~600 fixed line 'islands' are located in high density areas outside major capitals, such as major country towns.

This Review focuses on areas outside those fixed line 'islands', which are to be served by either fixed wireless or satellite.

Based on the best currently available data the Review estimates there will be ~1,020,000 premises in the non-fixed line footprint by 2021, being ~8 percent of the then total of 12.7 million premises.

NBN Co's fixed wireless network uses TD-LTE technology, with current specifications designed for the 2.3GHz spectrum band.

To completely cover a geographic area, NBN Co needs more towers than a notional radius and typical mobile network operator (MNO) grid suggest because although towers have a theoretical range of ~14km, line-of-sight (LOS) is required to all premises.

On average, each tower is only able to reach about 20 percent of the area within that 14km radius.

The specific location of towers is a critical decision and moving them as little as a few hundred metres can make a large difference to the number of premises they can reach.

NBN Co's satellite program is based around both an interim satellite service and a long term satellite service.

The Interim Satellite Service (ISS) currently in place involves NBN Co leasing capacity from IPSTAR and Optus Satellite.

In the meantime, NBN Co is developing its Long-Term Satellite Service (LTSS) by building two identical satellites to provide broadband services.

Both satellites are scheduled to launch in CY15.

The two satellites will work on the Ka band, a high frequency spectrum particularly suited to telecommunications.

They will cover the entire Australian mainland and islands through 101 dedicated 'spot beams'.

Each satellite beam has a different capacity in terms of maximum bandwidth, which is split across all end-users in the beam, and cannot be changed.

The highest-capacity beam can serve ~15,000 premises, while the 20 lowest capacity beams can serve an average of ~700 premises each.

NBN Co admits that its national fixed wireless network will not have the capacity to meet expected demand in seven year’s time, with around 200,000 of the planned one million premises in the wireless and satellite footprint not able to be served with faster broadband.

 Internet users in the NSW Northern Rivers region will smile cynically when reading fixed wireless details, knowing full well that local topography in the seven local government areas would result in NBN Co having to erect between est. 1,600-1,700 high wireless towers (see example left) with each tower only serving an est. 14km line-of-sight range – and, leaving aside future capacity problems, that still would not guarantee reliable fast wireless broadband coverage to most of the people living on the coastal side of the Great Dividing Range, from the Clarence Valley up to the NSW-Qld border.

So what did NBN Co announce this month?

Why, it is beginning to roll out fixed wireless across the Northern Rivers! Including to the City of Grafton in the Clarence Valley and in the Lismore area.

See here for locations, but readers should be prepare for disappointment ahead of the mouse click.

There will probably be further disappointment if anyone bothers to read Liberal MP for Wentworth and Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull’s response to the NBN review report.

* Photograph from ABC News

Australian Federal Election 2016: State of the Internet

By February 2016 NBN Co was 65,268 "construction completions" short of its planned budgeted target of 94,273 fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) installations and behind by 740,000 
premises connections, with connection costs to each house or business also blowing out according to an internal company report obtained by Fairfax Media:

"The report, which was never intended for public disclosure, reveals the extent to which the more than $46 billion project has drifted off course, mainly during the time when Mr Turnbull was in direct control as communications minister - the portfolio he held before replacing Tony Abbott as Prime Minister in September……

Under the heading "Commercial in Confidence: Scale the Deployment Program", the report outlines a plethora of faults, including that delays in power approvals and construction are being caused by electricity companies which account for 38,537 premises or 59 per cent of overall slippages against the target.

Another 30 per cent of delays are down to material shortages and a further 11 per cent are attributed to completion reviews.

"Construction completions currently sits at 29K against the corporate budget of 94K," the report states.

"Gap-to-target has increased from 49,183 to 65,268 at week ending February 12.

"Construction completions gap can be attributed to 3 main issues: power, supply, and completions under review."

Also noted in the report is  a rise in the cost per connection of design and construction, which has now reached $1366, compared with the target price of $1114 - a 23 per cent increase."  

Image of Telstra communications pit (Sydney) from Delimiter, 1 March 2016

By now I imagine we are all used to images of aging sections of Telstra's copper network (such as the one above) when people discuss Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull's new and 'innovative' National Broadband Network (NBN).

What we are not accustomed to are images of NBN's actual blunders with Fibre To The Node (FTTN). Planning and operational blunders which appear to be at least a partial cause of the treacle-slow roll out of Malcolm's ill-thought out hybrid scheme.

Examples in South Australia sent to North Coast Voices by a resident of that state. All comments under images are his:

 "The houses near these nodes all have underground power and phone lines. It would have been quicker and cheaper to run fibre."

"NBN running kilometres of new conduit and 200 pair 4 gauge copper cable (left) and nodes side by side with another 190 metres away."

"There is a node to the left of this pillar. This is all 200 pair copper cable. Cheaper, faster sooner. BULLSHIT."

"Generator​ at Murray Bridge, close to power"

"Strathalbyn​​ - Power on both sides of the road and they were running a generator hired from Able Hire many months.The tower was laying in the grass for six months so why wasn't the power ready to connect from day one?" 

As for those NBN costings:

A cable with 4 fibre optic fibres costs 70 cents per metre if bought in large quantities. A cable with 4 fibre cores costs $2.00 per metre in small quantities. These prices are easily verified.
Householders have to pay for the whole footpath, the whole gutter, half the road, sewer, water-main and fire points, gas pipe, storm-water pipes, telephone wires and conduits and power poles and lines or underground power. This is an enormous cost. Contrast this with a relatively small piece of fibre optic cable that is only going a short distance to the Optical Splitter that connects blocks of 32 houses, the cost per connection would be minor, only the cost of a few metres of fibre cable to connect between streets. You would soon have a town or suburb connected for minimal cost.
Currently, when connections are made using copper wire, these copper wires that go from a house to an exchange may be up to eight kilometres in length, which is sixteen kilometres of copper for the two wires. This is a massive cost compared to fibre optic cable.
Landowners with large properties have run their own copper phone lines on top of fences in the past, but distance can be a significant problem with copper. Fibre optic cables can be reliably run 200 kilometres without amplifiers. Also electric fences can cause interference on nearby copper lines. Fibre optic cables are not affected in this way. I have been assured by Peter Ferris of NBNCo that large property holders will be able to cheaply obtain and run their own fibre cables and then easily obtain a connection to the network. [South Australian resident, 2010]

A South Australian resident just seven kilometres by line of sight from the Adelaide central business district has been quoted $150,000 to upgrade to a National Broadband Network fibre connection. Read more: 
http://www.itnews.com.au/news/first-nbn-fibre-extension-comes-in-150000-312027#ixzz42fHnUN24

The NBN access lucky dip:

After attending a Community meeting yesterday, we were advised that it appears likely we would not be included in the Fibre rollout, as it appears to finish at the council border, not extending to the end of the road (a distance of about 1km).

They (NBN Community meeting people) happily advised that we would receive Fixed Wireless coverage when it was installed.

The problem with the Wireless solution is that none of the properties have direct LoS to any tower where the Wireless would be installed…..

What's left?

NBN Satellite. To be within sight of the CBD (~7km as the crow flies) and have to resort to using a Satellite service for broadband is just crazy.

FTTN would even be better, as the Node would be at most 1km from the last property (if installed at the end of the planned Fibre rollout on the affected road), however, I dont believe FTTN is an option being considered by NBNCo. Read more: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1959073

Hills dwellers are not strangers to the vagaries of technology – thanks to the terrain we find so beautiful.
Many residents have tales of having to stand out on the verandah in the cold in order to make mobile phone calls.
Then there are those Cudlee Creek residents who live 15 minutes from Tea Tree Plaza but can't watch the local news because they were relegated to a satellite service at the digital television switch over.
But this region might discover just how off the grid some of its population might be when the NBN Co finishes rolling out the national superfast broadband infrastructure program.
The difference between the "haves" (fibre to the node) and the "have a fraction of what's available" (wireless or satellite) might be the difference of only 100m, depending on where your home is located in this region.
That might not seem so important now but in the future, when reliable access to superfast broadband is considered the norm and the copper wire system is obsolete, residents might find themselves severely disadvantaged.
If you lived in Andamooka in remote SA, you might be more willing to accept that you can only have access to satellite.
But if you live at Piccadilly like Stephen Birrell, and you did your homework before you moved your international business into the Hills, you wouldn't be happy to learn that fibre to the node is too difficult, contrary to initial advice.
Mr Birrell has the means to buy the technology he needs to make his business work, or he can move his company to the US.
His argument is that access to the NBN is being paid for by taxpayers as a basic infrastructure service but a disproportionately high number of taxpayers will receive a significantly slower and more expensive mode of broadband delivery based on geography.
It's why he and his neighbors have started the action group Gully Road Digital Divide to effect change in the NBN roll-out.
Whether the group brings about change in Mayo in an election year remains to be seen.

The cost and complexity of fixed services are prohibitive in some areas but if Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants Australia to be the country of innovation, perhaps the criteria need to be revisited or at least debated by the community. [The Courier, 9 March 2016]

Founder & Chief Medical Officer, Wellend Health, Adelaide, Australia

All this paints a poor picture of Malcolm Bligh Turnbull's grand plan for an 'innovative and agile' nation with citizens and corporations connected to each other and the world.

The situation is all the more frustrating when one realizes that NBN Co. has been sitting on an alternative to the optic fibre currently in use - skinny fibre.

Of the skinny fibre trials conducted so far CEO of NBN Bill Morrow has stated: 

The findings are encouraging. Relative to cost, we were able to reduce the cost per premises by roughly $450 per premise. And while this is early, it's still significant. And relative to time, we also believe that we could shave four weeks off the time of the build.

Although to date the roll out remit given to NBN Co. by Malcolm Turnbull apparently would not allow it the flexibility to do so.

Is it any wonder that the internal company nickname for the roll  out of the NBN Mark II is Operation Clusterf*ck.

Which leads to another potential problem - the Coalition's Fibre To The Node (FTTN) apparently continues the current ADSL status quo for many Internet users, which is an electricity dependent Internet connection.

What happens to these FTTN connections (and phone connections consumers are/will be paying for in their home or business plans via their Internet Provider) during scheduled and unplanned power outages¹?

NBN Co. obligingly informed us in 2014 that we would need to order its Power Supply Unit Battery Backup Service (which includes a standard battery type used in many different systems) because we will not be able to even dial 000 in a power outage.

Which is definitely a retrograde step, because currently if an ADSL connection is knocked out by a power cut at least the landline phone still functions normally.

This question about power outages was asked in March 2016 by that South Australian resident who commented:

“I made several calls to NBN Co to finally realise that I know more about their technology than the help consultants.

Will my phone and internet work if the power goes out? No, you will need to have a charged mobile phone if there's a power blackout.

I then asked the question about why they have batteries in the nodes, if the 'phones are not going to work in a power failure and was told that they hope that they will work.

What rot.

I also asked why the FTTN system will be running slower for the first 18 months and they couldn't tell me.

I know that you can't have the ADSL and VSDL systems working at full power because one system is interfering with the other. The VSDL interferes with ADSL.
Please see: http://blog.jxeeno.com/nbn-fttn-limited-to-121-mbps-during-transition/”

Footnote

1. Examples of electricity blackouts in 2015:

January  Geelong region storm cause power outages across city ...

February Power outages leave northwest Victoria in the dark ...

March  Wildlife causes power outage…1,455 customers

April  55,000 homes in the Hunter still without power

May  Power restored after outages affect 23,000 homes in ... - ABC

June  Newport crash triggers power outage, house fire, traffic ...

July Carnarvon planned outages in July 2015 - outages will occur from 9 July- 16 July across multiple locations

August Power outage leaves 2500 north Canberra homes in the dark

September Power outage affects 30000 homes and businesses ... - ABC

Lightning, hail and damaging wind hit Brisbane as severe ...affecting more than 1,000 homes and businesses

October Brisbane power cut: Fire causes outages | The Courier-Mail

November Power outage hits thousands in northeast Brisbane suburbs ...

December Power outage in Kurnell: NSW State Emergency Service ...

So who destroyed any credibility left to NBN Co. and the Australian Federal Police?

On 19 May 2016 it was reported that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) used warrants to search an electorate office occupied by former Communications Minister and current Shadow Minister for Defence Senator Stephen Conroy and the home of one of Shadow Minister for Communications Jason Clare’s staffers looking for evidence of a whistleblower involved in leaking NBN Co. documents, which outlined cost blowouts as well as planning and delivery failures in the rollout of Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull’s faster, cheaper, sooner national broadband network.

The ABC sighted a warrant and reported that it named Labor Senator Stephen Conroy, staffers, technology bloggers, and four major media organisations including the ABC and that It required the people subject to the warrant to hand over all documents relating to those people and organisations.

A number of NBN employees were also interviewed in relation to this matter on 19 May according to the AFP.

This is a redacted copy of the letter sent to AFP Manager Crimes Operations after the raid on Conroy's Melbourne office and the Brunswick home of a Labor staffer:

Letter (1) by Orietta

So who was this mysterious civilian “seconded assistant” who apparently snapped over 30 images of documents over which parliamentary privilege had been claimed and, sent them on to various employees of NBN Co?

An un-redacted screenshot was displayed on Twitter in the early evening of 20 May for those who missed the hint In The Australian the first time around:

On the same day this set tongues wagging on Twitter:

So the cat is allegedly out of the bag and it is rumoured that the man at the centre of the political furore at the end of Week Two of the federal election campaign is a former Frankston detective senior constable, former partner in a furniture business, former head of security at a casino and current works in security at NBN Co.

However, this rumour remains unconfirmed because neither Team Turnbull, NBN Co. nor the federal police are about to name names. Transparency and accountability are not concepts that would normally be associated with these three.

The AFP stated in a 20 May 2016 media release that the federal government and opposition were appropriately notified and advised of operational activity regarding this matter after it commenced yesterday.

The current Minister for Communications and Senator for Victoria Mitch Fifield has admitted that he knew about the complaint to the AFP and the subsequent investigation but denies knowing of the warrants or tipping off the media to the night raids.

Sky News reported that Malcolm Turnbull said he first became aware of the raids when notified by Justice Minister Michael Keenan on Thursday, after the minister had been briefed by the AFP chief.

To date Attorney-General George Brandis is not on the record as to what he knew.

As the raids on both Steven Conroy and one of two Labor staffers were filmed by mainstream media there remains a suspicion that a person within government or police circles told the media about the when and where of these searches (second raid seen in this video).

When it comes to the exact type and status of those documents allegedly improperly distributed by the AFP/”Mr.Steere”, one will have to wait and see what any post-federal election Senate inquiry on the parliamentary privilege claim reveals or if Labor makes a formal complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman or commences legal action.

UPDATE

First leaked 12 page document from NBN Co titled Overbuilding Optus and marked Commercial Confidential,second leaked 12 page power point presentation CTO Briefing: Fibre to the distribution point and marked Internal Use and Scale the Deployment Program – Fttx Design and Construction. Copy of NBN Corporate Plan 2013 not yet found.

1617 Warrant - redacted Australian Federal Police warrant to search premises dated 18 May 2016 by clarencegirl

The Register, 22 May 2016:

The staffer has been identified as Simon Lee-Steere, nbnTM's general manager for security investigations, although in the only public document (below) his name has been redacted…..

Later, in defense of the staffer's actions, nbnTM corporate communications executive Karina Keisler Tweeted that the company's staffer was acting with the authorisation, and under the instruction, of AFP officers.

Business Insider, 23 May 2016:

NBN Co has stood down two of its employees over alleged involvement in the leaking of documents which resulted in last week’s AFP raids on Labor offices.

A spokesperson for the company confirmed that two employees had been stood aside while the AFP investigation was taking place. NBN Co did not name the employees or wish to comment further.

This news follows a dramatic few days for the government and the NBN, after police raided the offices of Labor senator Stephen Conroy, the homes of Andy Byrne and Ryan Hamilton as well as two staffers of shadow communications minister Jason Clare…..

The Australian Federal Police no longer have access to seized documents after the Labor party claimed parliamentary privilege.

AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin confirmed that the documents seized have now been sealed, and can’t be accessed until the matter goes before the Senate….