Australia - Opposition has promised "intense" scrutiny of NBN roll-out and operations

[the australian] TONY Abbott has vowed intense scrutiny of the roll out of Labor's national broadband network.

The Opposition Leader has signalled the Coalition will not fundamentally alter its own broadband plans.

Speaking at a press conference this afternoon following Prime Minister Julia Gillard forming a minority government with the support of country independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, Mr Abbott said he believed the $43 billion, fibre-centric NBN would be a wasteful failure.

"My strong suspicion is the NBN will be school halls on steroids," said Mr Abbott when asked if he would review the Coalition’s more modest $6.3bn broadband policy which would use a mix of wireless, copper, satellite and fibre backhaul to deliver a ‘minimum peak speed’ of 12 Mbps to 97 per cent of the population.

He said that in opposition he would hold the government "ferociously" to account and that no responsible government would commit $43bn to a project without a proper cost benefit analysis. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has previously said a cost benefit analysis on the NBN was a waste of money and effort.

The NBN figured strongly in preventing Mr Abbott in winning over the independents and being able to form a Coalition minority government.

In laying out their reasons for supporting Labor earlier in the day, both Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor indicated the NBN was a major factor. At a press conference to announce their support of the Gillard government, Mr Windsor reiterated his view that "you do it once, you do it right, you do it with fibre."

Mr Abbott will face a Coalition party room meeting on Thursday where he will likely be re-elected leader.

Following that meeting, he said there could be some reconsideration of broadband policy settings in the post election wash up. But he indicated there would be no major changes around broadband policy.

“I’m very confident the policies we took to the election were the right ones," said Mr Abbott.

Abbott to scrutinise NBN