Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

so much money wasted and mismanaged on an infrastructure project. That is why we have gone backwards on all of the international broadband measures—because Labor could not get anything done. The reason why they could not get anything done was sheer mismanagement and incompetence. We have inherited an enormous mess in the NBN, billions of dollars wasted and forecasts missed.

I saw the shadow minister clutching a document the previous management published a little while ago. He was saying that was the truth. Well, that document which he says is the truth says there would be 729,000 premises passed with fibre in June next year. We already know that is only going to be 467,000. So it was not the truth for very long. Every single forecast this company made under Labor has been proved wrong.

What we have done is, for the first time, to tell the truth—a thorough, objective appraisal. It is not happy reading for anyone. It is tough. It is conservative. It is prudent. This is the way governments must govern: based on fact, not on paying people, as Labor did, to tell them what they want to hear.

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