Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

Grumpy Gavin. Telstra should be doing cartwheels about this deal because they retain ownership. What we are doing is just handing money to Telstra. They get $5 billion rent on their ducts. We do not own them. NBN does not own them. Telstra remains with ownership of them. It is a brilliant deal for Telstra—and they get to lose the USO, the universal service obligation. They can flick that one out the door. They can flick the protections that we put in place out the door. The protection is gone, money is in and debt has gone up—it is a typical Labor deal. This is a perfect Labor deal. They will just wander overseas and borrow a bit more money from China, a bit more money from Japan and a bit more money from the Middle East to cover up their black hole in funding. But they do not care about this. There is no acumen to this. It is terrifying to see that the person representing the Treasurer, sitting merely feet away from the minister, has no idea about the fundamental financial aspects of this deal. That is something the Australian people should understand about the acumen that sits behind this.