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

I note what the minister has just said. I understand he did not raise the matter with the minister for communications, Telstra or NBN after 2009. That is now clear. I want to clear up, for the benefit of honourable members, the reference the minister made—which was very misleading, perhaps innocently misleading—to the letter of David Thodey dated 14 December. That letter ends, in the penultimate paragraph: 'Given the low risk of in situ pits, the potential risks of removal and the prohibitive associated costs, we do not believe a proactive pit removal process is justified at this time. This is particularly so given the rollout of a new fibre network by the new National Broadband Network Company.' What the minister may not be aware of is that at the end of 2009 there was no agreement by NBN Co. to use Telstra's pits and pipes. In fact, what NBN Co. was going to do was to overbuild the entire Telstra network. Mr Thodey, no doubt, was contemplating a situation where entirely new infrastructure which did not disturb his pits and pipes was going to be built by NBN Co. And that was the original plan of the government. All of that changed, however, when the agreement was reached, by June 2011 as I recall, between NBN Co. and Telstra which involved the wholesale disturbance of the Telstra infrastructure.

The second matter that I asked the minister about—and perhaps he could just put this to rest—

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