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

Senator Minchin, you have fallen for that trap a couple of times now—through you, Mr President. Senator Minchin has unfortunately fallen for that trap. One proponent, I note, in the media said recently, ‘Of course we could reach 98 per cent if the government gave us more money.’ What a surprise! What a surprise that, in a live tender process, some proponents may actually want to minimise the amount of money that they will put forward and maximise the amount of money that the taxpayers put forward. What we have created is competitive tension among the proponents. So we are in a much, much stronger position than those opposite were when they ran their sham of a process revolving around Broadband Connect.