Once more, Telstra demonstrates its appalling arrogance. They’ve just been excluded from bidding for Australia’s National Broadband Network for submitting a non-compliant bid, and now try to deny it despite their own clear evidence.

The Australian IT reports today:

In a statement to the stock exchange, Telstra said it had been excluded from the bidding process because its proposal submitted on November 26 did not include a plan on how to involve small and medium-sized enterprises in the building of the network.

26 November was the closing date for submissions, published well in advance. And yet:

Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie said the reason for its exclusion was “trivial”…

“Telstra provided its SME plan to the Government in early December and, in Telstra’s view, in accordance with the RFP (request for proposals),” said Mr McGauchie.

No, you fuckwit. The closing date was 26 November. Supplying information in “early December” means your submission was missing key elements. Morons.

Did you ask the teacher for an extension? Did you have a note from your mother? FFS! I stand by what I wrote in October: Get over yourself, Telstra!

If you can’t even provide your goddam submission on time, why the hell would we be stupid enough to give you $4.7B of our money?