Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to the fact that it was confirmed in Senate estimates this week that there are only $2.4 billion of funds available for the National Broadband Network and that the government will have to borrow more than $40 billion for this project. Why haven’t those numbers been included in his debt forecasts?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because you just made them up. What we have included in there is provision for an equity injection. That is what we have done. We have also acknowledged that, if we move forward and we do more, we may have to guarantee borrowings, and that is accounted for in the statement of risk.