Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Of course, they did not have to apply. Looking gift-horses in the mouth, though, is not something any of us can afford to do. I explained to the school communities that they should try to get their share because they will certainly get their share of the debt and it is unlikely that any amount of money will be coming to schools again in the near future because we will be so far in debt for so long a while paying off this round.

It comes back to the question: are we getting value for money? When we have seen the blow-out in the BER, the $900 cheques and the pink batts program—and I can do sums on the back of an envelope that will show you that the National Broadband Network will not stack up—are we getting value for money? The government has signalled it is going to put $43 billion into this. I pointed out to the House in a speech that in Finland, where 40 per cent of houses have 100 megabytes per second available, the take-up rate is 1.5 per cent and in Singapore, where 100 megabytes is available to 100 per cent of households, the take-up rate is one per cent. People are not prepared to pay 2½ or 3½ times the price of a monthly service so they can have 100 megabytes. They would prefer to have 10 megabytes for a cheaper rate.

What is the government’s answer to this? The answer is the compulsory takeover of Telstra. There is no other way of reading the act—it is the compulsory takeover of Telstra.

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