Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says the three-year rollout plan for the national broadband network (NBN) is a "ham-fisted" attempt to conceal its failures.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and NBN Co boss Mike Quigley on Thursday announced details of the high-speed network rollout plan at a special event in Sydney.
Over the next three years to June 2015, construction of the fibre optic cable section of the $35.9 billion network project will be under way or completed in areas incorporating 1500 towns and suburbs that contain 3.5 million homes and businesses.
Mr Turnbull said barely 5000 households have received better broadband since Labor took office in November 2007.
"The national broadband network is up to a year behind the targets in its own corporate plan published in December 2010," Mr Turnbull said on his blog on Thursday.
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He said the only numbers that mattered were the number of households connected to high-speed broadband.
"The rollout `plan' does not contain a forecast of how many households and businesses will actually be able to connect to the NBN fibre by 2015," he said.
"Nor does it contain a forecast of how many households and businesses will actually be connected."
Australians should look at the record and performance of the NBN before deciding to trust the government on delivering broadband, Mr Turnbull said.
There was no indication more than a fraction of the premises claimed would be connected by 2015.
