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

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. I refer the minister to his statement of 16 October 2008:

Importantly, we established Infrastructure Australia to ensure that proper cost-benefit analysis was brought to the assessment of the nation’s infrastructure needs and the merits of individual projects.

If the government’s policy remains that for all major projects there should be a fully available cost-benefit analysis, why is this not the case with the National Broadband Network?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank very much the member for Wentworth for his question. I am pleased that, having opposed the formation of Infrastructure Australia and opposed the government’s infrastructure agenda, there now appears to be—contrary to some other issues—some bipartisan support for the existence of Infrastructure Australia, for the moment anyway. The fact is that Infrastructure Australia did hand down its first infrastructure priority list. We tasked it—a body made up of representatives of the three levels of government and the private sector—to ascertain what the infrastructure priorities were for Australia.

Do you know what Infrastructure Australia had to say in their first report about the National Broadband Network and about its importance to the economy? I will quote for the benefit of the member for Wentworth where it was identified. You did not have to go through the document very far because the No. 1 priority Infrastructure Australia identified was this:

The importance of an accessible and fast broadband network to Australia’s international competitiveness is almost impossible to overstate.

They get it. The Australian people get it. All the business people I spoke to at the AiG dinner last night get it. It appears that you simply do not.

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

Mr Speaker, on a point of order on relevance: the minister has not responded to the question. He has not even mentioned the cost-benefit analysis.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has concluded.