CANBERRA - AUSTRALIA'S government faces a battle to win backing for an ambitious super-fast broadband network spanning the nation, with rivals rejecting the plan and newspapers calling it either 'brilliance or a rash extravagance'.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Tuesday said he would develop a US$31 billion (S$47 billion) private-public broadband network that would take eight years to build and be the country's largest infrastructure project, if it survives political opposition.

'BREATHTAKING' PRIME Minister Rudd's Labour had seized the opportunity presented by problems in its original, modest election plan to launch a grand big-government broadband scheme, veteran political analyst Michelle Grattan wrote in The Age newspaper. 'The government's breathtaking broadband project is either a stroke of ambitious brilliance or a rash extravagance that might be impossible to implement,' Ms Grattan said. ... more

'Our initial position is that it's a heck of a lot of money,' said independent upper house senator Steve Fielding, whose support the centre-left government needs to get the scheme past conservative and independent upper house opponents.

Mr Rudd's plan had fundamental flaws, Mr Fielding told a radio station on Wednesday, including where the money would come from as Australia teeters closer to recession, and whether the network would be obsolete by the time it was completed.

Conservatives wielding the largest bloc of upper house votes also opposed the scheme, with Liberal Party Senate leader Nick Minchin calling the plan a joke.

But Australian Greens senators said they would give the plan serious consideration. While the government has not outlined a timetable for laws to reach parliament, the Greens expected to scrutinise the scheme later this year.

Australia has slower and more expensive Internet services than many developed countries, raising concerns about competitiveness, but the project will be made more difficult by the country's vast distances and inhospitable terrain.

Newspapers said if Mr Rudd's internet plan was carried out competently, it would equip Australia with the world's foremost tool for innovation and growth. The government, riding high in opinion polls, faces re-election late in 2010.

Senior political columnist Peter Hartcher said Mr Rudd had 'thrown out three decades of ideology' in the wake of the global financial meltdown, displaying a distrust of the market and placing government back at the centre of national planning.

'With the government to own 51 percent of the equity, Rudd has in effect closed the Australian sub-branch of the Thatcher-Reagan revolution,' Mr Hartcher wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. -- REUTERS