Is Tanner kidding on reform?

Comments on Lindsay Tanner “Reforms are micro more than macro”, 5/11/2009, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26305877-5015664,00.html

Mr Tanner, you say:
"The most far-reaching and challenging micro-economic reform process that's under way is of course in telecommunications. The government's national broadband network project is half of a wider reform agenda in telecommunications. The other half is regulatory reform.
The Rudd government inherited a terrible stalemate in telecommunications: a private company that completely dominates the sector through its control of monopoly infrastructure; a complex regulatory regime that encourages gaming and discourages innovation and investment; and broadband outcomes well behind most comparable nations.
Regulatory reform and infrastructure investment are inextricably connected. The government is committed to ensuring Australia has world-class infrastructure that is accessible to all market participants on equal terms. Under the Howard government private monopoly model, this couldn't happen. In the modern economy, telecommunications services are of similar importance to financial services. The notion that we should tolerate third-rate arrangements is unacceptable. Most of the critics of the government's proposals would regard themselves as supporters of the free market, but they are somehow unable to address the need for genuine competition in telecommunications."

Either you have got the fact wrong or the Rudd government has been seriously and deliberately misleading the Australian public.

Hasn't the Rudd government say the NBN Co will be privatised after the net work is built sometime in the future? If it is a private company, isn't it still a monopoly in communication infrastructure in Australia?

Further, you say the current reform is about productivity, skills, education, deregulations etc. Will any reform by government involving a $43 billion infrastructure project without a prior business study and cost benefit analysis necessarily conducive to productivity? Is any investment in education involving asking schools to almost compulsorily guild school halls and libraries with or without the need, or with other more needy and worthy areas left unattended good for enhancing skills or improving the quality of education?

Is what you say "micro" micro-managing?

I beg you to answer these questions before he and the government spin around the country every day.