Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

You would think there would be a pretty significant proportion connected in a town of 25,000. You would think maybe 10,000 or maybe 5,000. Fewer than 50 people in Armidale have connected. So I would suggest, Senator Bilyk, that maybe you go back to your speech and have a little look at that particular bit—fewer than 50 people. The bill before us today does nothing more, as I said earlier, than require the government to act responsibly. Senator Birmingham, in his second reading contribution to the bill, said:

... it will give parliament much greater comfort if that transparency—

indeed, the transparency of the NBN—

is a statutory requirement rather than simply a promise from the executive.

I think he is spot on on that one, because we know what this government is like with promises, don't we colleagues? Let me see, what is the most recent promise I can think of that was broken? The biggest one is—I know—the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, saying before the last election: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' And what have we got now, colleagues? We are looking down the barrel of a carbon tax.

Senator Lundy interjecting—

I notice Senator Lundy is making a contribution from the other side for the first time. I think the government is a little sensitive about this, because they know that there is nowhere they can hide. It was a promise that was made to the Australian people and it was broken—'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' So it is not surprising that the Australian people do not believe the minister, Senator Conroy, when he says: 'Just trust me. It'll be fine. The NBN will be fine. We don't need a business case. We don't need a cost-benefit analysis. It'll be fine. You just trust us.' The Australian people are smarter than that and they deserve better than that. They deserve to have the business case and the cost-benefit analysis that has been put forward through Senator Birmingham's bill. It is just common sense that that sort of information would be available. It is just common sense that the Australian people would be able to have access to the information that they rightly deserve about how the NBN is going to work. Let me tell you, colleagues, this whole 'trust us' thing just does not cut it. The $50 billion that this government is going to spend and how it is going to work need to be plainly and clearly explained to the Austra­lian people. The government should stop hiding. The government should stop complet­ely negating the need for this, because it is quite extraordinary to watch. On this side of the chamber, we understand that it needs to be done. We need better tele­communications, and especially in regional Australia. Senator Joyce and I have been saying that for years and years. But we have got to do it responsibly and sensibly and do it informing the Australian people of what we are going to do about the outcomes they need and deserve.