John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Exactly. That is a case of the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to the point of relevance. Recalling question time over the last couple of years, I do not think Senator Conroy has ever directly answered a question that has been asked of him. Now he is here with a saintly halo around his head saying, ‘You must be relevant.’ There are wide terms of reference in this debate, as you pointed out, Madam Acting Deputy President. I will continue on.

The point I make is: with this $43 billion spend, where is the business plan? That has been hidden away. It was hidden to give to some if they signed up to confidentiality. Where is the Productivity Commission’s cost-benefit analysis? No, that is not forthcoming. People are simply being hoodwinked into signing onto it, as they have had to do in Tasmania with the opt-in, opt-out changes. People in Armidale in northern New South Wales have been begged to hook up to it, as the stories in the paper show. Hence the thing I say is that we can do a lot better with this sort of money and still have good broadband services. We can still carry out those medical procedures, we know, with four megs of download, not 100. Telstra has seen it. The point is: with the waste of money on top of this debt, when are we ever going to pay it back?