Liberal corruption in the NBN Co

Sadly, you can’t make this stuff up.

In the recent Senate hearing for the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee on the 20th November, Senator Conroy launched into some scathing details of how Malcolm Turnbull has hired his mates to oversee the NBN Co implementation.

Lets put some context in here… Justin Milne was the CEO of Ozemail - of which, Malcolm Turnbull was a part owner. Malcolm bought in to Ozemail in 1994 for $500,000 and sold his share to Worldcom in 1999 for $57m.

Now, Malcolm Turnbull is the Minister for Communications, and Justin Milne ends up on the NBN Co board of directors. That isn’t the whole story however - it gets even more incestuous.

CICOMILNE PTY LTD was awarded a contract for $14,000 for advice in 2013 between September and December for “Provision of advice in NBN transition issues”. The consultant and 100% owner of CICOMILNE PTY LTD is Justin Milne. This contract was awarded one week after the Liberals were elected. What the advice was is still missing - as at the moment, nobody is sure what services were actually provided.

Senator Conroy rightly inquires “So out of nowhere, the Ministers absolute best mate gets a $14,000 contract a week after being appointed, is that correct? … Who gave Mr Milne’s name to Mr Clarke or Mr Robinson given that Mr Clarke had never met him?”

This is even more interesting when Justin Milne was appointed onto the NBN Co board in November 2013.

So, how many other contracts are awarded to Malcolm Turnbull’s mates to get his way with NBN Co?