Australia's NBN: Come Hell or High Water

Abstract

Are there projects of such self-evident value that they ought to be exempt from even the most rudimentary cost-benefit analysis? Seemingly so, according to the former Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner, as long as it's the National Broadband Network (NBN). In May 2009, a month after Kevin Rudd had announced the $43 billion project, when asked about the absence of a cost-benefit analysis (CBA), Tanner said: 'We had to make the clear decision that said this is the outcome we are going to achieve come hell or high water because it is of fundamental importance to the future of the Australian economy' (quoted in Martin 2010).