Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What is the hurry with the Senate consideration of this so-called competition and consumer safeguards bill? What is the hurry when this government is in zero hurry to provide stakeholders with a copy of the business case? A copy of the business case could at least inform the business underpinnings of what this bill seeks to implement. What is the hurry, Minister? In particular, what is the hurry when the government is in no hurry to produce a business case? What is the hurry when the minister informed us at Senate estimates in May that there was apparently no relationship between this bill, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2010, and the construction of the National Broadband Network? We know that this bill is in fact all about the NBN. We know that this bill is a stalking horse to force Telstra’s hand to participate in the National Broadband Network because, without Telstra’s participation, the government’s vision of its National Broadband Network cannot come to fruition. We also know that this bill is about to giving a preferred space to deals done between NBN Co. and others to implement the government’s NBN dream, because it proposes to exempt those deals from what would be and should be normal scrutiny by the ACCC in terms of competition.

We do know that this bill is about the National Broadband Network, despite the protestations to the contrary of the minister and the government. We also know that this minister told us at Senate estimates that this legislation, and the other legislation yet to come—of which there is quite some—is irrelevant to the construction of the National Broadband Network. Minister Conroy, who is trying to look totally uninterested because he does not want to hear his words spoken back to him—I guess I might do the same, Minister, if I were you, but I am kind of pleased that I am not—