The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is under pressure on two fronts from the Opposition over its own spending controls and its commitment to NBN operational performance monitoring.

Political responses to the definitive agreement between Telstra and NBN Co were predictably down party lines, with Liberals Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Fletcher scathing in their assessment of the deal, while those aligned with the Labor side of politics hailed it as an historic and needed reform. Shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull said that while the agreement may be a good deal for Telstra’s shareholders, it will not deliver value for taxpayers or more affordable broadband for consumers.

The predominantly fibre-based NBN is a costly exercise that will not necessarily lead to higher take up across the board, according to Liberal member for Bradfield Paul Fletcher.

BRADFIELD Federal Liberal MP Paul Fletcher has said the 2011 Federal Budget fails to ease cost of living on Australian families.

“This Budget confirms how out of touch (Prime Minister) Julia Gillard and (Treasurer) Wayne Swan are with Australian families,” Mr Fletcher said today.

“It fails the essential test: to ease the cost of living on Australians who face higher prices every day.”

Mr Fletcher said this year’s Budget delivers “more deficit, more debt and more spin”.

“The government’s failure to rein in its wasteful and reckless spending will lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates,” he said.

He said the government’s plans to freeze the indexation of key family tax payments and income thresholds for three years is an “assault” on families, and that the new arrangements for taxing company cars will “slug” small businesses.

“This is the first budget in eight years that has not provided tax cuts for everyday Australians,” he said.

Mr Fletcher also attacked Treasurer Wayne Swan for got his revenue, expenditure and deficit figures wrong, as well as the forecasts for inflation, economic growth and unemployment.

“Since coming to power, Labor has employed 24,000 additional public servants. The Government is asking the Australian people to tighten their belts, but it’s refusing to do the same itself.

On a more local scale, Mr Fletcher criticised the decision to defer $150 million of funding for a feasibility study for the F3-M2 Sydney Orbital Link.

“(It) confirms that under the Federal Labor government absolutely nothing is happening in relation to the missing link between the F3 and the M2,” he said.

WHEN Liberal MP Paul Fletcher told parliament in March that costs had blown out on stimulus building works at a school in his electorate, he was called an "idiot" by Julia Gillard, who told him to get his facts right.

The then education minister responded to him in parliament in March by telling him to get his facts right.

But Mr Fletcher, the Liberal member for Bradfield in Sydney's north, wasn't feeling an idiot yesterday when the first report into the Building the Education Revolution scheme revealed that same public school failed the value-for-money assessment.