Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of the answers by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy. We had a plan, a plan to ensure access to fast and affordable broadband to 99 per cent of the Australian population—99 per cent of Australian households and small businesses—by the end of 2009. We had a plan to extend fast and affordable broadband to regional Australia. Labor has scuttled that plan. Labor will replace that plan with a vague, citycentric promise of a national broadband network, which will cost Australians an arm and a leg—not just the $4.7 billion that is in Labor’s policy but between $897 million and $1.4 billion in additional costs to be incurred by Australian families.