Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for the supplementary question. I am sure that the senator wishes that were the case, but, sadly, it is not, because discussions between me and other providers have been going on for a number of weeks with really nothing to do with the Labor Party proposal. You cannot sensibly discuss the Labor Party’s proposal in any event because it is a daft idea to knock off $4.7 billion from the Communications Fund and raid the future to pay for the past when they cannot get their head around the economics of telecommunications and what is a commercial proposition and what is not.