Tasmanian NBN Co: What does it do and why are its directors paid nearly $200,000 a year?

The National Broadband Network is squandering public money on an unprecedented scale. 

The chaos has been so great that some aspects have not received the scrutiny they really deserve.

One such aspect is the decision taken by the Rudd Gillard Labor Government to start the NBN in Tasmania. 

Originally this was going to be a joint venture with the Tasmanian Government  - an idea championed by then Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett.  

In August 2009 Stephen Conroy announced that Tasmanian NBN Co Limited had been established and this company would “undertake this landmark project for Tasmania.”  The joint shareholders would be NBN Co and Aurora Energy (a Tasmanian electricity company owned by the Tasmanian government.)

Things then got very messy, there was a power struggle between NBN Co and Tasmanian NBN Co – and the idea of a joint venture was quietly dropped.

In December 2010 Doug Campbell - a well respected former senior Telstra executive who had been Executive Chairman of Tasmanian NBN Co – was dumped from the board.  David Bartlett stepped down as Premier in January 2011.

But Stephen Conroy is never one to admit the obvious.  So Tasmanian NBN Co still exists (as a one hundred per cent subsidiary of NBN Co) and it still has a board of directors.

Late last year I asked a question in Parliament about this.  The answer only came recently.  Apparently as at October 2011 (the date I asked the question) there were five directors.  The chair received $75,000 a year and the directors $40,000 a year (except one who was also an employee of NBN Co.) 

It is hard to imagine what they can usefully do for the money – particularly since the company has no employees to actually implement any decisions the company may choose to make.  

The answer informed me that the job of Tasmanian NBN Co is “to promote the successful rollout of the NBN in Tasmania and identify and showcase the benefits of the NBN so as to stimulate innovation, new means of delivering health, education and community services and the generation of business activity.”

That’s a long way short of building and running a network – what it was originally supposed to do.

And it’s hard to see why you need a board of directors paid nearly $200,000 a year for it.

My question, and the answer I received, are below.