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

I have to confess I was playing in the staff versus politicians soccer match this morning. So we can put it on the official record, we defeated the staff 3-1. I think the politicians in the chamber should be very pleased with themselves for dealing with those young whippersnappers. I came straight from that soccer match, but that is separate from the debate and the point Senator Joyce tried to make this morning, which was that we have exempted the NBN from the Trade Practices Act. This is simply untrue. The deal between the NBN and Telstra, which Senator Joyce keeps referring to, has been ensured so that there is certainty.

The ACCC are absolutely at the centre of this deal all along the way. We have taken away all the appeals mechanisms that could frustrate this deal later. To mislead the public, as Senator Joyce did earlier on national television, by saying that the NBN is exempt from the Trade Practices Act is just a falsehood. Senator Joyce should know better. It has not exempted the NBN from the Trade Practices Act. It has exempted a deal between the NBN and Telstra from the appeals mechanisms after the fact. The ACCC are at the centre of this.

The opposition’s claim is just another furphy to try and sink the deal, to try and ensure that the NBN does not get built. The politicians on that side of the chamber are frauds on this issue. They now support the structural separation of Telstra—I understand that is now their official policy. There is no reason at all for them to be delaying this bill. They have spurious arguments about this bill.

The opposition support the separation of Telstra and we welcome that. I know Senator Birmingham has always really believed that, but finally common sense has prevailed. People like Senator Birmingham and Mr Turnbull deserve acknowledgement and credit for having dragged the dinosaurs in the coalition party room into the 21st century. Senator Joyce is almost in a position where he is supporting Labor’s 2007 policy for 12 megabytes. I reckon, if we give Mr Turnbull, the member for Wentworth, another few weeks, the opposition will finally catch up and support Labor’s 2010 policy. Give them a few more weeks. They now have a 12-megabyte policy, which was Labor’s plan in 2007. I reckon in another few weeks they will be up to 2010. Some day they might catch up with the government’s actual rollout and get behind it rather than speaking from both sides of their mouths, as Senator Humphries does in Gungahlin and as Senator Bushby does in Tasmania.