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

I am confident we can achieve the objectives described in the quote the honourable member for Blaxland gave, but we are in negotiations with Telstra about it. The negotiations are progressing well, but these things are only—you can only say they will be completed when they are over. That is the reality, but they are progressing well. All I can say is this: the culpable recklessness of the previous government in not taking an option over those legacy assets was extraordinary. It was a political decision, it was designed to hamper any future government in its flexibility, and it was a classic case, yet again, of politics—Labor Party politics in this case—putting the financial future of this country at risk. Yet another reckless, wasteful decision that was a completely unbusinesslike decision.

The simple truth is this: in every other jurisdiction of comparable countries, what telcos are doing, what carriers are doing, is upgrading their broadband networks—that is happening everywhere—and they are using a mix of technologies and they are using whatever is cost-effective. And new hybrid technologies are becoming more effective: vectored VDSL can now deliver 100 megs—who would have thought that five or six years ago? G.Fast is delivering a gig—who would have imagined that was possible over a hybrid network? All of these technologies are becoming available and they are all being deployed in a rational way. The crazy Labor government, which was thrown out of office last year, did its utmost to ensure that the NBN could not be completed in a rational way and we are hard at work to ensure that it is completed rationally, prudently and in the best interests both of the taxpayers and the consumers.

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