Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has released what he calls an interim statement of expectations pending changes to the NBN board and a number of reviews.
The announcement comes after all but one of the NBN Co board handed their resignations Mr Turnbull, at his request.
Earlier this month Malcolm Turnbull said he found it remarkable that there was nobody on the NBN's board who had either run or built or been responsible for building or managing a large telecommunications network.
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He says he asked the board of the National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co) to resign to give the government room to move and not because he was unhappy with its performance.
"That request should not be regarded as any criticism of any of the directors least of all of its chairman Siobhan McKenna. The reason for that was to simply give the government complete flexibility in remaking the board in light of its new policy agenda. And decisions about the board will taken by the cabinet in due course."
Mr Turnbull is expected to appoint a three person board, headed by former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski to oversee operations until a number of reviews are undertaken.
He says the government wants an independent audit of NBN Co's books, a review of its commercial progress, and a Productivity Commission inquiry into broadband policy.
The Minister says following the completion of the review, the government will introduce a new corporate plan to see realistic rollout targets set and delivered.
Mr Turnbull says the government will deliver fast broadband services but will cut down the cost and speed up the rollout by changing from a fibre-to-the-home to a fibre-to-the-street corner model.
"The interim statement provides NBN Co with the flexibility to use a wider range of technologies to connect businesses and homes to the network. For example this will allow the NBN Co to trial the latest VDSL technology to deliver super fast broadband to homes and businesses in multi-dwelling units such as apartments and office blocks."
Interim Labor leader Chris Bowen says it has taken less than a week for the Coalition to start wrecking the National Broadband Network.
Mr Bowen says after the sacking of senior public servants, any interference with the professional board of the NBN raises real questions about the government's motives.
He says the Coalition is determined to wreck the NBN by putting in place a second-rate network that relies on last century's copper wiring.
"On the face of it, together with the effective sacking of the board, it appears 900 thousand houses will get copper instead of fibre. That is nowhere near as efficient, nowhere near as good as the NBN that we would deliver, that the NBN that we were delivering and would have continued to deliver in office."
Mr Turnbull says this is wrong.
"There has got to be a lot less politics in this project and a lot more hard headed practical business and management. That's what we need. I know I am a politician but my commitment is to make this project as non political as possible so that we make our decisions as rational people would based on cost of deployment, time of deployment, service level offered by different technologies that tend to get lost in the waves of often, I have to say, pretty ill-informed commentary."
