Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will continue my remarks because, as I am very certain the Deputy Speaker understands, the financial framework legislation that is before us is about ensuring that government agencies are spending taxpayers' money appropriately. It is about accountability processes in government. The NBN Co. is a classic case of a new government agency. We are seeing some $40 billion of taxpayers' money going into NBN Co. and we are now seeing the rollout of this spending across the Australian community. I think—and I would caution that I am not absolutely certain of these figures because I am going on memory—that it has been put forward by the government that by the end of this calendar year there will be fibre rolled out to some 700,000 homes across Australia. It will be rolled out—I will come back to the bill because I can see the member opposite getting all excited—by a Commonwealth government agency to 700,000 homes.

At this point in time, as I understand it, there are 20,000 to 30,000 homes that have had fibre rolled out to them. So we are talking about 670,000 homes that are apparently going to be reached between now, February, and December this year. That kind of environment creates a recipe for disaster when it comes to good-quality spending by a government agency. That kind of environment masks a multitude of spending decisions that no doubt will run entirely contrary to the spirit of this bill and entirely contrary to good purchasing decisions when it comes to taxpayer dollars.

See this speech in context