Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

You can; it is the ABS statistics. Feel free to look it up. You have got the worst, Senator Parry; you have the second worst, Senator Birmingham; and Senator Cormann has the third worst in the country—32 per cent, 33 per cent and 42 per cent. That is what you have delivered to your constituents after 11½ years. And you come in here and say, ‘We need to inquire as to why we need a national broadband network.’ Go for a walk in your own home towns. Take a walk in the street. You will be told in no uncertain terms that, after 11½ years, you failed. You failed.

The government does not support this broadband committee motion, and it raises three major issues. You should actually withdraw the motion because of these reasons. You should withdraw it because you are being completely irresponsible. Firstly, this inquiry has the potential to undermine or jeopardise a live commercial process—a process that is already underway. Have an inquiry at the end when we have made a decision—feel free—but to try to interfere in a live commercial tender process is grossly irresponsible, and you should be embarrassed. Secondly, the inquiry will be ineffective because stakeholders will be constrained in how they can offer to interact and contribute to the inquiry. In addition, many of the issues that it purports to be inquiring into remain unknown. You are holding an inquiry into things that have not been decided yet. That is how desperate you are. You are making inquiries into decisions that have not yet been decided. It is just embarrassing. You are actually inquiring into things that do not exist. Finally, the inquiry is unnecessary, given the fact that there is already a rigorous, robust, competitive process underway. You are inquiring into things that do not exist. You should be embarrassed, Senator Birmingham.