Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I was issuing a challenge to the Labor Party, and I see that Senator Conroy is piking it today; he is not in the chamber. My challenge to the absent Senator Conroy is this: release Labor’s costings, coverage maps and details of technical backing that prove Labor’s plan works. I am calling on the Labor Party to release details that support their claim that with $8 billion they can reach 98 per cent of the population with fibre. It is clearly a nonsense, but until Labor provides this detail on its plan, all Australians, particularly those in regional and rural Australia, will have no confidence that there is any alternative to the government’s fully costed and fully tested plan of delivering affordable broadband to all Australians.