The Liberal/National Party-backed Mayor of the Gold Coast Council this week dramatically cut short a presentation by the National Broadband Network Company to the council, according to multiple reports, calling time on the company’s comments just eight minutes into a scheduled half-hour briefing.

Tom Tate is not officially a LNP politician currently, holding the office of Mayor on the Gold Coast as an independent. However, he was a Liberal Party mayoral candidate back in 2008 and had his recent successful campaign reportedly backed by the LNP, including current Queensland Premier Campbell Newman.

According to a report published by the Gold Coast Bulletin, NBN Co was invited to give a presentation this week to the council about the company’s rollout plans in the area. NBN Co announced in April this year that it would create 100 new jobs on the Gold Coast due to locating its customer contact centre in the region, and it is also planning to deploy broadband infrastructure to around 80,000 premises on the Gold Coast through to 2015. At the time, Gold Coast Acting Mayor Daphne McDonald welcomed NBN Co’s decision to locate the customer contact centre in the city. “Hot on the back of the news the Gold Coast has been included in the NBN’s three year rollout, this is another win for the Gold Coast with the call centre bringing 100 new jobs to the city in the next 12 months,” she said.

However, multiple media outlets have reported that the Council’s new Mayor Tate cut a planned 30 minute presentation to the council by NBN Co government relations & external affairs advisor Darren Rudd short to just eight minutes. “All right, thank you for your presentation. Next item,” Tate told Rudd, cutting him off in mid-sentence according to a broadcast aired by television station NBN News (not related to the NBN project). Reportedly, the next item on the agenda was a presentation (including video) by not for profit group World Kindness Australia, which ran for 18 minutes, with NBN Co’s presentation being referred to a committee.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said in a broadcast that the move was “a disgraceful performance by an arrogant council” and the Gold Coast Council should publicly apologise to NBN Co. “It’s very clear that the Liberal National party and their mayor are just playing politics,” he said.

dirty corrupt labor politics.

Tom Tate is a dam moron, how he got voted in here on the gold coast I am fkd if I know.

Anyone who spends over 1 million dollars to secure a position with a 300K salary is not in it for anyone but himself.

He looks some what chromosone deficiant and can hardly speak properly, he a dead set goose.