Chinese technology giant Huawei has weighed into the heated debate of whether Labor’s $36 billion national broadband network has been influenced by politics, saying there would be “enormous risks” for Australia if it did not cooperate in China.

Speaking at the CommsDay summit in Sydney today, Huawei board member and former Liberal party foreign minister Alexander Downer warned there would be “enormous risks” for Australia if it did not cooperate in China.

The comments come weeks after The Australian Financial Reviewfirst revealed Huawei had been banned from tendering for the NBN due to security fears raised by ASIO and other security organisations.

Speaking about the South Australian area he once represented, Mr Downer sought to raise doubts about the political motivations behind the sites selected to receive the NBN in its next rollout phase.

“The NBN may well be coming to the Adelaide hills,” he said. “but I don’t think it will be hitting the Adelaide Hills before the next elections because it’s a safe Liberal seat.”

The comments echo those made by coalition politicians, who earlier claimed the NBN three year rollout plan announced earlier this year was a pork barreling exercise and attempt to shore up Labor’s voter support.

NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley yesterday denied politics had influenced the rollout and said sites were selected based on engineering plans.

The number of electorates where the NBN will start getting rolled out over the next three years is for the most part evenly distributed between coalition and Labor seats.

Source:cn-c114.net