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

I apologise. The Deputy President is interjecting very rudely and I was distracted by him! Senator Ludlam is actually trialling what you wanted, Senator Ferguson.

When the government established the national broadband network process, it indicated that its preference was for an equity contribution of $4.7 billion. Depending on the final size of the network, that could be 50 per cent or it could be 30 per cent. That is actually stated in the RFP. That is in actual fact our preferred model, but we are prepared to consider other models. We have always made it clear that we believe that there is a role for the federal government. That contrasts to those opposite who, for many years, apart from 18 pork barrel efforts, completely and utterly rejected any public participation in the telecommunications sector. Your predecessors, Senator Ludlam, and mine all voted against the privatisation of Telstra. It was a great disappointment that those opposite chose to go against the will of the majority of Australians by privatising Telstra. We have made it clear in the RFP process that we are prepared to consider this as one of the options. In fact, we expressed it as our preferred option. Let me be clear about this: we have put forward $4.7 billion to deliver the necessary outcomes for the benefit— (Time expired)