Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have said that we would like to see a competitive contract, and we do not think we are getting one. This is potentially one of the largest tenders in Australia’s history, and the concern is that for a highly technical, high-cost bid there seems to be very little time for competitors to gain the information required to put in a bid. It is also important that the national broadband network has the environment in place where competition will flourish once it is established. I want you to listen to this, Minister, because this is important: we certainly do not want to see another CDMA network situation, where everyone had open access to the network until Telstra twisted your arm and you shut it down. In this case it is the copper wire network, and it creates a Telstra monopoly. We do not want to see a monopoly; we want to see open access. In the case of CDMA, which was open access, when it was transferred to G3 everyone got shut out, including Australia’s most remote rural dwellers.