Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

He says, ‘Get wireless.’ Indeed, America is rolling out a wonderful wireless network. Ninety-eight per cent of Americans are going to have access to that high-speed internet wireless network. If it is good enough for 98 per cent of Americans to have it—I think at a cost of $17 billion—then surely it would be good enough for Australia, which is roughly the same size as mainland USA. As I said, 98 per cent of Americans are going to have access to it, but here in Australia not quite that many—in fact, far fewer—are going to have access to Australia’s expensive NBN. All it is going to do is saddle our grandchildren with a huge cost that they will be struggling to meet. Hopefully, future coalition governments—and, hopefully, that will not be too far away—because we are fiscally responsible, will be able to service that debt, because we will have to.

Another classic example of Labor’s waste is the Building the Education Revolution, which has brought about so much heartache and so much debt for the Treasury.

See this speech in context