Economist Henry Ergas has long been a critic of the National Broadband Network under the former Labor government. His views on the project were not exactly secret over the years. And today he continues in form in The Australian railing against Labor for failing to provide modelling on their policy.

What The Australian curiously fails to note is that Ergas is in part responsible for the current government’s policy on the NBN, and he was paid to review the policy by the government.

Before the 2013 election, then-shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull often criticised Labor for failing to conduct a cost-benefit analysis into the NBN. When it came to his own policy, he did not get it checked by the Parliamentary Budget Office because he didn’t believe they had the skills required. It was widely expected that Infrastructure Australia or the Productivity Commission would do the long-awaited cost-benefit analysis but Turnbull instead opted for a panel of critics of Labor’s policy, suggesting the productivity commission — now chaired by former Comms department secretary Peter Harris — did not have the skills to review broadband.

Ergas’ appointment to the supposed “independent panel” of experts was widely criticised at the time because Ergas was such a big critic of the former Labor government’s project, and when the results came out and endorsed the multi-technology mix, people were not surprised.

Turnbull himself, while defending the qualifications of the other panellists, did not refute claims that he was mates with Ergas.

It is a strange omission — the paper has declared it before, but perhaps in an election these things get overlooked.