The Shadow Minister for Communications, Jason Clare, announced Labor's plans on Wednesday, promising a fibre-optic network would be deployed to deliver the nbn to north west communities.

Clare indicated that funding for the network to Tassie’s north-west would come from the nbn’s existing budget allocations, and that he expected the cost of rolling out fibre, as well as the access technology on the ground, would be approximately $29 million.

In 2015 nbn announced it did not plan to rollout fibre connections to the north-west region, but that the area would be serviced by satellite.

At the time residents of the area complained that satellites would not be sufficient to meet future needs.

In a statement on Wednesday following Labor’s announcement of its Tasmanian proposed nbn fibre rollout, the Minister for Communications, Mitch Fifield, hit out at what he called Labor’s “unfunded announcement “ and that it expected the nbn to provide $29 million to pay for its “election promises” in north west Tasmania.

But, according to Clare, Labor’s policy to rollout its proposed fibre network is viable.

Minister Fifield reacted strongly to Jason Clare’s statement, saying that the “nbn is no ATM” and that the so-called unfunded announcement sets an “extraordinary precedent for the misuse of a Government Business Enterprise (GBE)”.

The Minister pointed out that under the GBE Guidelines, the nbn is empowered to act commercially and independently when building the broadband network.

“Labor’s announcement demonstrates they have learnt nothing from the last time they messed up the nbn. Under Labor, the nbn was one of the most poorly managed infrastructure projects in the history of the Commonwealth. More than $6 billion was spent over four years to connect just 51,000 users to Labor’s network.”

According to the Minister, in North West Tasmania local calls for fixed line broadband are already being considered through nbn’s existing Technology Choice policy.

And, he says the significant difference between the Technology Choice option and the promise made by Labor today is that it is unfunded.

“nbn does not have a spare $29 million available to fund Labor’s empty election promises. Labor must to come clean on which other towns will be disadvantaged by this intervention in Tasmania.”