Policy failure led to loss

Whereas the projected costs of installing the NBN have blown out astronomically, the rollout and customer targets had been dramatically curtailed by the former government over time.

In 2010 the government promised that the NBN would be available to 1.3 million premises, and servicing about 500,000 people, by June 2013, however the latest information reveals that the network has passed only 207,500 premises and less than 34,000 households were actively using the service.

Labor 's broadband policy clearly represented a throwback to the period prior to telecommunications deregulation, as taxpayers are forced to bear the costs incurred by a governmental monopoly, NBN Co, charged with rolling out the network.

The Rudd-Gillard government has lumbered taxpayers with an infrastructure white elephant of colossal scale which, in the absence of corrective actions, will deliver internet at slower speeds than other countries and at much higher costs.

Live cattle export ban

There is never any delicate manner in which cattle can be slaughtered to provide nutrients for the masses, but the suspension of the month-long live cattle trade to Indonesia in mid-2011 has simply been an unwarranted economic disaster for an efficient and reputable agricultural industry.

Inspired to act by sensationalist reporting by Australian state-owned media about animal welfare practices overseas, the Gillard government 's temporary halting of live cattle exports to Indonesia deprived hard - working cattle producers in northern Australia of an ability to generate incomes.

The ban also severely disrupted elements of the beef supply chain in Indonesia, and has needlessly strained economic and diplomatic relationships with our northern neighbour.

The adverse combined effect of these, and other, policy positions adopted during the terms of the Rudd-Gillard government were manifold, and included the declining cost competitiveness of business, reduced job opportunities especially for those on the fringes of the labour market, and, more generally, reduced economic freedom for all Australians.

Unless what is left of the former crop of Labor government ministers and backbenchers concede the gross errors of their policy ways from 2007 to 2013, they are at risk of being left on the political sidelines as the Abbott government gradually takes credit for correcting past policy mistakes.