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

Yes, Senator Conroy. You have to ask, Mr President, what was this draft letter from Labor to the Auditor-General doing in a Telstra strategy manual about influencing an independent auditor’s review? Was it there for a bit of technical tweaking or was it to give them notice?

The snag in this plan by Telstra and Labor to influence the Auditor-General is that the Auditor-General torpedoed their arguments when he found, ‘It was open to government to agree to negotiations being pursued with the preferred applicant and to commit to increase the program’s funding.’ Here we have it: a Telstra plan to deliberately submit a bid that it knew was not compliant and was doomed to fail, to get the Labor Party to seek to influence the Auditor-General—