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

Senator Birmingham then made an attempt to seriously verbal my last answer, but I will put that aside. Let me be clear: in the RFP—which Senator Birmingham and I discussed at length at Senate estimates, and which I even offered to read out to Senator Birmingham so that he would be fully informed, rather than just being handed some questions—it states quite clearly that the Rudd government’s preference is for an equity partnership. It quite clearly states what our preference is; that is set out in the RFP. You can read it. I can get you the page number, I am sure, very quickly, so that you can have that information. $4.7 billion is the cap—no more. It does not matter what the final cost is. It does not matter what technology is picked—ADSL2+, VDSL, VDSL2+; it does not matter. (Time expired)