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

Unfortunately, Senator Cormann, I do not know who gave you that report and asked you to ask this question. What that report was about was not the total cost of the government’s plan; it was a comparison between two proposals. It was not about the government’s plan. It was two proposals. It was a comparison between an Optus idea and a Telstra idea. It was not about the government’s plan.

You stood up and you asked a question that is not even about the government plan. You knew so little about what they asked you to ask, and they got you to compare two apples. The government’s plan is the national broadband plan. Those plans are not related. You asked a question that was not about government policy. You actually compared two other plans and said, ‘Here’s the extra cost.’ Neither of those plans is being proposed by the government. The opposition are so intent on abusing their Senate majority that they wish to prolong the broadband blockage that they left behind. You fail to realise that you are no longer in government. In the dwindling days of your disastrous Senate majority—