The Federal Government has chosen to ignore a Coalition-dominated Senate committee's call for a cost-benefit analysis into the national broadband network.
Of the 12 recommendations made by the committee, the Rudd Government has agreed with just one, which advocates the development of new applications that promote economic development and improvements in health, education and energy efficiency.
The broadband network has a price tag of $43billion and has been touted by the Government as the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken in Australia.
The committee, in its third report into the project, recommended a rigorous cost-benefit analysis before the NBN Co enters into any new asset purchasing agreements for the mainland deployment.
But despite the cost, the Government is continuing to refuse to conduct such an analysis.
It has also refused to agree to the committee's recommendation that an interim report of an implementation study due early next year be provided by December 31.
The Government also rejected a recommendation that further consideration of the broadband network legislation not proceed until there is certainty about the regulatory framework that will surround the network.
Committee chair Liberal Senator Mary Jo Fisher said the cost-benefit analysis should be done in the interest of transparency.
''Rural and regional Australia are still grappling with working out what they'll get, when they'll get it, how they'll get it,'' she told the Senate last week.
''It seems that with the greater of the spend come less transparency.''
But a spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the Opposition was simply attempting to delay the rollout of the network, while also failing to produce a communications policy of its own.
''The Government is getting on with the job of rolling out this vital productive infrastructure platform,'' he said.
''Nick Minchin and the Liberal Party have no communications policy and no contribution to make on broadband.''
Construction work was under way in Tasmania and the implementation study on the national rollout of the network would be completed in early 2010, he said.
Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam said it was regrettable the legislation that will deliver the regulatory reforms would not be debated this year.
The Government had hoped to have the debate take place last week but it was forced off the agenda by the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Ludlam was also critical of Government plans to sell down its 51 per cent controlling interest in the company that will build and operate the NBN within five years after it's built.
The build is expected to take eight years.
''Nowhere have we seen any justification for this incongruous and retrograde policy which seems determined to repeat the mistakes of the past,'' Ludlam said.
AAP
Email a friend