One of the defences NBN has used in arguing why leaked documents from the company are bad and the AFP should be allowed to raid Labor HQ is that the company is very transparent and publishes so much information on the state of the rollout. Not for much longer. The ACCC has released a change in NBN’s special access undertaking — the rules that govern the NBN rollout — that is supposed to allow it to roll out Turnbull’s “multi-technology mix” version, but also reduces the number of times the company will be required to report to the public.

While NBN will still do weekly progress updates for everyone, it will no longer publish its one-year construction plans every quarter, and its three-year construction plans will now only be published once a year, and will only be made available to internet service providers. NBN has justified this by using its long-running excuse for hiding information that is deemed “commercial-in-confidence”. Perhaps the plans will be the next ones to be leaked?

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