Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to speak on this matter of public importance, and indeed this is an incredibly important matter for Australia because there is $43 billion of money on the line here and potentially a world of debt, pain and repayments at the end of this. It is incredibly important because there is every likelihood that this government is sinking money into the National Broadband Network with no real knowledge as to how far it is going to sink and how much will ultimately be blown on the proposal. Today’s MPI is to note:

The Gillard Government’s refusal to subject the National Broadband Network to appropriate parliamentary and economic scrutiny including independent cost benefit analysis.

We are blessed in this chamber to be in the presence of the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. Indeed, on Monday during question time in this very place, the minister said in response to a question:

It is important that robust business cases are prepared to support the investment of very large sums of public money.

Those were the words of Senator Conroy in question time in this place just two days ago. Anybody listening to or reading them might be forgiven for being a little confused, because isn’t this the same Senator Conroy who vehemently argues that a cost-benefit analysis for a $43 billion expenditure is not necessary? Let me just check again the words that he said he in this place on Monday. He mentioned ‘very large sums of public money’ and ‘robust business cases’, and if $43 billion is not a very large sum of public money, I do not know what is.