Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That speech, and those similar speeches on the other side, including the member for Wentworth’s speech, are all about delay. They know everything about delay. They did nothing for 13 years when they were in government, they did nothing while they were in opposition except put up a pathetic plan—I think it was either No. 19 or No. 20—and they were that confident of it they sacked the architect, stuck him on the backbench and said, ‘Thanks very much for nothing’. That is how much confidence they had in it. We listened to the member for Goldstein trying to um and ah his way through trying to explain what their policy was, and we had the Leader of the Opposition say to Tony Jones or Kerry O’Brien—one of those perceptive interviewers—‘Don’t take me on a tech survey, I don’t know anything about it.’

Now we have his shadow opposition spokesperson on telecommunications with the absolute mission statement to destroy the NBN coming up with another delay tactic. What a joke! Isn’t it interesting that he is that keen on accountability, saying ‘We must have a Productivity Commission investigation. We must have the parliament poring over this for the future of Australia. We must have every man and his dog poring over this to make us feel confident that the investment is needed.’ We know it is really all about delay. If he was that keen on accountability, he might have had the Productivity Commission do a cost-benefit analysis of the Adelaide-Darwin railway. We might remember that one.

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