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

Thank you for that question. It is my first from Senator Ronaldson on my portfolio. As part of our election commitment to boost Australia’s productivity, the Rudd government have indicated that we will commit up to $4.7 billion and will consider regulatory changes to facilitate the rollout of a national broadband network. This will be the biggest national investment in broadband infrastructure ever made by an Australian government. It demonstrates our commitment to investing in infrastructure that is vital for Australia’s long-term prosperity.

The government are moving quickly to fulfil our election commitments. On 11 April the government released the formal request for proposals, which is publicly available for parties interested in the national broadband process. The RFP sets out the Commonwealth’s 18 objectives for this project and the framework under which the proposals will be evaluated. Amongst other things, the objectives clearly state that the national broadband network should cover 98 per cent of homes and businesses, offer minimum download speeds of 12 megabits to each end user and use a fibre based network. The timetable provided in the RFP is indicative, and it states that quite clearly.

The government stand by the announcement I made on 22 May that proponents will have 12 weeks to consider network information required to lodge submissions from the date that the last information is made available. We are engaging actively with carriers to ensure that the network information is made available as soon as possible. Unlike the former government, we have made it very clear that we recognise that proponents will need access to relevant network information to prepare national broadband network proposals on an equal footing. This is unlike the proposal from those opposite, where there was no expert panel considering the information and no information was sought from the telco providers. They were just told to bowl up a proposal to the former government’s broadband plan. So let us be clear about this: we are going through this systematically and methodically. It is very important to the RFP process that proponents get access to the right information.

We are in the middle of a live competitive process now, and proceeding as quickly as possible. It is of critical importance that integrity and confidentiality are maintained to ensure the NBN process delivers the best possible outcome for Australia. It is not appropriate that the government conduct a running commentary on a live commercial process, and, as such, I will not be commenting further on this matter.