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

I really thank the honourable member for the question. That was very generous of him—this is the question he has been nurturing for the two years I was the communications minister and had not been able to ask it. I am grateful for the question. Let us be quite clear about this. The National Broadband Network project was undertaken by the previous Labor government after, literally, 11 weeks' consideration. It was a shockingly reckless failure of policy and process. When they embarked on the project, they had no idea what it would cost and they had no idea how long it would take. There was no way that they could have known that, because the reality is that they had not done their homework. They committed the Commonwealth to a staggeringly ambitious project—

Ms Claydon interjecting—

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