Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband) Share this | Hansard source

I was touched to hear the member for Melbourne say that the Greens were committed to open and transparent government! I was interested to hear the member for Melbourne say that this amendment would ensure that the NBN was subject to the Freedom of Information Act but was able to keep protected only those documents that were really commercially sensitive. This is where the member for Melbourne does his party, this House and this country a great disservice moving this amendment, because it is, as I said, a con.

I will take the member for Melbourne through this. His amendment will include the NBN in division 1 of part II of the Freedom of Information Act—this is on page 173 of the Freedom of Information Act. His amendment will say that its documents are exempt if they are in relation to its commercial activities. His amendment also adds an additional subsection to section 7—that is at page 17 of the Freedom of Information Act. I am sure that the member has got that at his fingertips! That new section 3A defines commercial activities in respect of the NBN as being activities that are carried out ‘on a commercial basis’.

I ask the member for Melbourne—and he has the opportunity to speak as often as he likes in these debates—to give the House one example, just one, of a document or a class of document that would not be exempt under the amendments he has moved. The NBN is a commercial enterprise. It is a business—not a particularly well-constituted business and it is not, certainly, going to be a profitable one, but it is a business—so all of its activities are conducted on a commercial basis.

He said that this would be similar to Australia Post, but it won’t, because the definition of commercial activities that applies to it are activities which are carried on in competition with persons other than governments or authorities of governments. So the NBN, which will be a monopoly on a fixed-line basis but will nonetheless be in competition in some parts of its business and not in competition in others, will nonetheless be exempt in respect of documents right across its entire business. I would invite the member for Melbourne to give us an example of a document or a class of document which his amendment will enable to be produced under the Freedom of Information Act and will not be exempt under his amendments.

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