Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I think the latter will happen and the former has taken a bit of a hit today, but he may well be back.

I look at the commentary today in the Australian editorial. I know that there are some—not all—on the other side of the chamber who openly and quite viciously attack the Australian newspaper—I think, quite frankly, totally unreasonably. I think it is a newspaper that has passed the test of time, and I think it is a responsible reporter of political facts in this country. I just want to read from this editorial:

THE unseemly rush to a National Broadband Network says more about the government’s political problems than about adding to national value.

               …            …            …

Labor appears willing to do anything to get the $43 billion network up …

               …            …            …

Australians deserve more open discussion on the NBN …

               …            …            …

The NBN is a Rolls-Royce answer to communication needs when a Holden might do just as well.

Towards the end of the editorial it says:

Even if the NBN delivered a top-of-the-line service rather than becoming an expensive white elephant, as some fear, the government has failed to explain why $43bn should be spent on broadband rather than on schools, hospitals, indigenous housing or other essential infrastructure and services. It is not easy to see, for example, why we still have so much single carriageway on Highway One north of Nambour (where Mr Rudd and Wayne Swan spent their childhoods) when the government thinks nothing of pouring millions into an information highway.

I have rarely seen a minister under more pressure than Senator Conroy is at the moment.