Labor's produced a NBN rabbit: Abbott

Labor's claim its national broadband network (NBN) will be even faster than first
thought proves the party is desperately reaching into its top hat of tricks to win
voters, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard revealed in Tasmania on Thursday that the federal
government's $43 billion NBN will be able to provide speeds of one gigabit per
second.
That's 10 times faster than Labor originally envisaged.
Mr Abbott questioned the timing and plausibility of the news.
"It's very hard to take seriously a government which suddenly pulls yet another
technological rabbit out of a hat just because it's under enormous pressure in the
closing stages of an election campaign," the Liberal leader told reporters in
western Sydney.
"This idea that 'hey presto' we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from
something that isn't even built yet I find utterly implausible."
But NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley denied Labor had a hand in the development
coming to light so close to the August 21 poll.
"Absolutely not, absolutely not," he told reporters in Sydney.
"I can categorically say there were no instructions at all.
"I think to some extent it was a surprise to the folks in government.
"I have no knowledge of timing of policy announcements and to be frank it's not
something in the company we are focused on."
Mr Quigley said it was only recently that NBN Co technical staff confirmed the
original dimensions of the network could handle the higher load without causing
system failures, and he told Communications Minister Stephen Conroy of this on
Wednesday.
Ms Gillard took the opportunity to once again rubbish Mr Abbott's $6 billion
broadband plan, which provides speeds of 12 megabits per second, saying it condemned
the nation to the past.
"If we say what we've got now is basically good enough, we are actually condemning
Australia to that kind of frozen-in-time attitude," she told reporters.
"Imagine missing out on all of the possibilities of the future."
Even former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull admitted that broadband was "a great
blessing and becoming more and more available all the time".
However, the Liberal backbencher warned the NBN was too expensive, and said most
people didn't really need super-fast broadband speeds anyway.
"The fact is that most people nowadays who are offered a range of broadband speeds
... do not choose to take the higher speed," he told ABC Radio.
Telstra boss David Thodey conceded household demand for one gigabit per second
internet speeds was probably a few years away.
Mr Thodey said the nation's largest telco had business customers currently receiving
similar internet speeds but households were unlikely to want such high speeds for a
while.
"I think for the average home, for the foreseeable future I think it's probably a
way away," he told reporters.
"It's a good few years away.
"A gigabyte's a lot of information, it's a lot of information."