Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was frustration because you were asking for a blank cheque for the sale of Telstra. And the proof came when you eventually got the ability to sell Telstra 2—the T2 shares. The record shows that the then government privatised the second tranche of Telstra and it went on to the market and thousands upon thousands of Australians lost a lot of money by purchasing shares which subsequently dived in value under the Howard government. The shares dived in value by up to 50 per cent. So the opposition should not lecture us about public accountability and taking proper due diligence on government expenditure.

The Minister representing the Treasurer, the minister in charge of broadband, has made it clear, time and time again, that this is a critical microeconomic reform. The NBN has a three-year corporate plan and is developing its 30-year business plan. The current government is currently dealing with those elements. It is inappropriate, until that process is properly completed, for the sorts of questions that are being put up constantly by the opposition to be put out into the public arena.

You want to destroy the roll-out of this very important project—probably the most significant project in the history of this country in terms of its importance to the population in the future. Your intention is to wreck this, and to do it as early as you can. That is why you are pursuing the course you are on. It is as plain as day: it will become very clear to you, and to the Australian public, just how important this project is when, in proper time, the information is made available.

I can recall being in this parliament in opposition, when I chaired an inquiry. A contract had been let by ANSTO—a government enterprise—but we could never ever get access to that contract after it had been entered into. Not before the contract had been entered into, when there were commercial-in-confidence considerations to be taken into account, but after the contract had been signed by ANSTO and an Argentinean company, INVAP. We asked for the contract in this Senate time and time again. Do you know what we were told? ‘We can’t give it to you.’ Why? It was commercial-in-confidence after the decision. You are now trying to jump before the appropriate time and ask for the same sort of information. That is your approach.