The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd yo-yo government stumbled from one disaster to the next, most fuelled by Kevin Rudd's messiah type approach to the job.

We now learn that Labor's attempts to roll out Australia's biggest single infrastructure project, the National Broadband Network, was similarly chaotic.

It sounded brilliant that the federal government could roll out fibre to the home for 90 per cent of Australians between 2009 and 2017 for $43 billion.

If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

An independent investigation by Bill Scales, a former head of the Productivity Commission, released this week, has found that this was an "impossible assignment" for a start-up company like NBN Co.

We all know that governments, especially Labor governments, run businesses poorly, which is why setting up NBN Co in the first place was Labor's undoing.

Mr Scales described the decision to set-up NBN Co as "rushed, chaotic and inadequate", and that rolling out the fibre network would have been a "significant challenge for a well-functioning, large and well established telecommunications provider".

This set the NBN Co on a collision course with Telstra - a relationship that is still problematic.

Even more damning is that Mr Scales found that the $43 billion was just an estimate done "without a business case or a cost-benefit analysis, without clear operating instructions, within a legislative and regulatory framework still undefined, with the key strategic and business relationship with Telstra ignored or unresolved and without prior consultation with the Australian community".

Is it any wonder that the project is years behind schedule, the price is expected to double and alternatives to fibre to the home are being considered.