Huawei Australia chairman John Lord has expressed disappointment at the Coalition government’s decision to uphold a ban which prevents the company from participating in the National Broadband Network (NBN).
Huawei was banned by the previous Labor government after advice from national security agencies.
In a letter which was sent to all staff in Australia, Lord wrote that he was “extremely disappointed” with the decision.
However, he also said that its business in Australia has never been dependent on the NBN.
“Despite the NBN decision, last year was our most successful year to date. Over 50 per cent of Australians already use a Huawei product for some part of their daily telecommunications needs,” Lord said.
“We have grown from just 20 staff in 2004 to over 700 staff today – 85 per cent of which are locals.”
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According to Lord, he has never been presented with “any evidence” that its company or technology poses any kind of security risk.
“In my address to the National Press Club last year I said that Huawei is prepared to offer all of our technology and source codes to be verified by security-cleared personnel in a secure environment. That position still stands – we have nothing to hide, and we have complete confidence in the veracity of our equipment,” he said.
Lord pointed out that Huawei is building eight of the nine NBN-style networks around the world, including the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand’s Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) .
“These countries have not embraced Huawei cautiously; they have embraced us with open arms,” he said.
The Australian reported today that Prime Minister Tony Abbott sent a private letter to Opposition leader Bill Shorten. In the letter, Abbott said he had “no intention” of reviewing the decision of the previous government to ban Huawei.
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