JOYCE AND WHITEHEAD AGREE TREASURY NEVER APPROVED OF UFB

Communications Minister Stephen Joyce has conceded that the Government agreed to spend $1.35 billion on ultra fast broadband without any cost benefit analysis from Treasury.

Speaking today on TV3’s “The Nation”, Mr Joyce said the analysis of the proposal has been driven by the Ministry of Economic Development and bringing together international “stuff”.

“I think if you actually said to Treasury would you come up with this policy at the front, they'd say no no no wait until we prove later on down the line that one day it might be useful.”

But Mr Joyce said the Government had decided to go ahead anyway and get ahead of competing countries and, and we've taken an express decision to try and get out ahead of the pack and “I think it will be absolutely transformational for this country.”

Retiring Treasury Secretary, John Whitehead, also speaking on the programme, agreed he was “disappointed” that the Government had not sought more advice from Treasury on the proposal.

I think I'd use the word sceptical, it's Treasury's job to be sceptical.

But “that’s life”, he said.

Mr Whitehead would not confirm that Mr Joyce’s claim that the spending would create 70,000 jobs and add 1.8% to gdp.

“It's the government's policy and we've actually helped them implement it,” was all he would say.

Mr Joyce was more bullish.

“At the end of the day it's going to speed up every aspect of digital life, “he said.

However the Minister said he was obtaining studies from Korea which would show how ultra fast broadband transformed that country.

“They're providing them to us, because they’ve now done their network and it's a 100 megabits per second everywhere and it's going very well,” he said.

“I said (to the Korean Minister) did you have all these studies before you started?

“And he said you know what we didn’t, he said but actually we come from a country where in the 1950s we were completely destitute and we started with transport, and we've gone to communications and that has transformed our country to one of the wealthiest emerging countries in the world.”

The Nation is produced by Front Page Ltd for TV3 and NZ on Air.

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