Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to have the chance to rise to respond to this matter of public importance, on the subject of the 'government's failures and lack of transparency on the NBN'. This, we're told, is what has excited the attention of the opposition today. Of course, this is all part of a carefully dreamt-up strategy by the shadow minister in which she finds this story, places it in the media and is then interviewed on 2GB, and says, 'As you say, Nine newspapers today are reporting evidence that has been covered up for nearly eight years.' This is apparently the validation—that there's been a cover-up for eight years—and the claim from the shadow minister is that there's a secret report which shows that Labor's plan would have been cheaper. There are only two problems with that: it's not secret, and it wouldn't have been cheaper. In fact, you can look at the strategic review's final report, version dated 12 December 2013, which is on the NBN's website. I went to their public website yesterday and looked at it. On page 17, we've got a range of scenarios. Scenario 1, revised outlook: $73 billion. That would've been a continuation of Labor's original fibre-to-the-premises plan. Scenario 2, radically redesigned fibre to the premises: $64 billion. And this is the font of all of this confected indignation from the shadow minister today: a report publicly available on the NBN's website—

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