Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I refer the minister to the Treasurer’s comments that the private sector will build a national fibre-to-the-node broadband network without government intervention. Can the minister point to any proposal—any proposal at all—to construct such a network, reaching 98 per cent of the Australian population, that does not involve government investment? Minister, hasn’t the Treasurer shown that your government has no idea how to deliver a fast broadband network to Australians and that this is a gross act of economic vandalism?