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

I was actually hoping that the question would be about the costs and the impact of the global financial crisis on the costs, but maybe that will come tomorrow. The situation with the national broadband network tender is that we are currently involved in a live tender process. We have a deadline of 26 November. That is when we will receive the tenders. In the interim, what we are seeing is lots of interest and competition taking place between prospective bidders. This is a healthy sign. On the one hand, we have some bidders making claims about the cost, about the length of time and about how hard or not hard it will be to raise capital and, on the other hand, we have bidders who are saying we must have this regulatory system or that regulatory system. So what we are seeing with the national broadband network—notwithstanding the opposition from those opposite us in the chamber—is that there is enormous interest and enormous competitive interest in bidding for the government’s tender.

We are offering $4.7 billion towards the cost of building this network. We have seen estimates that it will be up to $25 billion. It has now come down to $10 billion to $15 billion. We are seeing wild claims in all directions from potential proponents. Part of this is simply positioning. Part of this is nothing more than the competitive processes which we put in place and which we welcome. So we do not have any difficulty whatsoever with the public commentary. We welcome it, because it shows the robust process that Labor put in place—as opposed to the process put in place by those opposite.