Australia government faces upper house broadband battle

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's government faces a battle to win backing for an ambitious super-fast broadband network spanning the nation, with rivals rejecting the plan and newspapers calling it either "brilliance or a rash extravagance."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Tuesday said he would develop a $31 billion private-public broadband network that would take eight years to build and be the country's largest infrastructure project.

"Our initial position is that it's a heck of a lot of money," said independent upper house senator Steve Fielding, whose support the center-left government needs to win approval for the scheme in an upper house dominated by conservative opponents and independents.

"The government has stalled for 18 months. How can we be guaranteed they're going to get on with the job now?" Fielding told a radio station on Wednesday.

Rudd's plan had fundamental flaws, including where the money would come from as Australia teeters closer to recession, and whether the network would be obsolete by the time it was completed, Fielding said.

Conservatives wielding the largest bloc of upper house votes also opposed the scheme, with Liberal Party Senate leader Nick Minchin calling the plan a joke.

But newspapers said if Rudd's internet plan was carried out competently, it would equip Australia with the world's foremost tool for innovation and growth. The government, riding high in opinion polls, faces re-election late in 2010.

Senior political columnist Peter Hartcher said Rudd had "thrown out three decades of ideology" in the wake of the global financial meltdown, displaying a distrust of the market and placing government back at the center of national planning.