Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

The purpose of the NBN, the national broadband network—not solely but in large part—is to meet the needs of rural and regional Australia, Senator Xenophon. That was the purpose of our election commitment. To deliver, to meet the needs of rural and regional Australia through the NBN, we need the funding. It will cost up to $4.7 billion. We came to the conclusion before the election that transferring the $2 billion in the Communications Fund was the most effective way to deliver.

People can make a judgement about the outcome of the national broadband network, but we are not doing that today. The process has just begun, effectively. We cannot make a judgement about that. What Senator Minchin is effectively doing is bagging the outcome before the outcome is known. I accept the political critique of the opposition and Senator Minchin, although it is a somewhat negative approach. They have reached the conclusion that it is a failure when the process has barely begun. I would suggest that that is not an appropriate way to make a judgement. As I said, there will be a debate about whether the national broadband network delivers to rural and regional Australia on another occasion, when Senator Conroy brings his legislation to this parliament. That debate will occur, but that process is not complete. What we do know is that, if the opposition’s amendments are adopted, that is the end of the funding. What hope is there for the current process that Senator Conroy is going through if the $2 billion cannot be transferred? I would suggest the implications of these amendments being carried would be very, very significant indeed.

The bottom line is that the setting aside of the fund and of the income that was being derived from the fund—and I acknowledge that it was set up by the former government—was not working. It was not delivering the outcome. We established through our policy that an alternative approach was needed. We carefully researched our policy and we presented it before the people. At the end of the day, the Australian people liked our policy—the Labor Party’s policy—in this regard more than they did the Liberal and National parties’ approach. The Liberal and National parties had years to deal with this issue. It was not working, and our approach was preferred. It was an election commitment given very specifically. What we now have is a backdoor attempt by the Liberal opposition to kneecap the process—which has only just started—of establishing a national broadband network to, in part, deliver to the people who live in rural and regional Australia.