Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly, the coalition very much supports action in telecommunications where there is market failure. But the reality is that so much of the money expended in this project is going to be in areas where there is no market failure and where there are other, cheaper alternatives.

Let me return to the substance of the amendments in relation to the coalition’s view that it is not the role of government to hold this project in perpetuity and that we should not make it more difficult than need be to achieve a sell-off of this project. It is vitally important that we get a highly efficient and highly effective telecommunications system. History has shown that government as the owner has not been particularly effective in running business enterprises. That is clearly done more efficiently and effectively by the private sector.

It seems astounding that we are going to have a situation where there is a Productivity Commission investigation with regard to the sale of this project when we were denied a Productivity Commission investigation into the viability and important aspects of the business itself. It just seems absolutely unreasonable that you would propose to give the Productivity Commission input into the sale and yet not give the Productivity Commission input into the actual proposal itself.

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