Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bilyk for her question. It seems we are going to traverse the same ground that we did yesterday, which is that the government's commitment has been an equity cap of $29.5 billion and that remains the case. There are two concepts that those opposite seem to have difficulty differentiating. They are the concept of equity and the concept of a loan. The equity cap was, and remains, $29.5 billion. A loan is entirely different to equity. A loan is something that is repaid. There has always been the need for a loan to NBN. The government looked at the options. NBN received a good indicative credit rating, and NBN could have borrowed on external markets. But the government compared that with what the government would be able to borrow at, and we made the entirely reasonable, sensible and rational decision to do that which would be at a lower cost to taxpayers. That was an entirely appropriate thing to do. What I do wonder, and what I have not heard from those opposite is: are they proposing a different approach? What is the approach that the Australian Labor Party would be putting forward? Do the Australian Labor Party think that we should have taken a different approach? Do the Australian Labor Party think the government should have taken a different decision? We have not heard from the Australian Labor Party in relation to that. What the government has said has been consistent, and what we have done matches that.