Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I can understand the Greens’ huge embarrassment, having voted for the gag time and time again to truncate discussion on this because they do not want these matters aired. I was wrong about the page number, so the point of order by Senator Ludlam was helpful to me. I was, in fact, referring to page 7, where the summary of the business plan says ‘Key objectives’. All the NBN Co. does is regurgitate:

The Government has stated its broad objectives for the NBN as follows ...

How is that in any way, shape or form giving us information about the NBN’s business plan? All they are doing is regurgitating the propaganda of the government, and they cannot even do it properly. I draw the attention of those in NBN Co. who drafted this document to page 7. It says:

The Government has stated its broad objectives for the NBN as follows:

“The new superfast network will:

Then they go through dot point after dot point after dot point, but the inverted commas stop at the second last dot point. So one wonders: is it an objective of the government:

To design, build and operate the broadband network required as the foundation of the Government’s NBN policy ...

If that is not part of the government’s objectives, what is it doing indented in the paragraph in this way? This shows that this document has been put together in a sloppy and unprofessional manner, or in indecent haste. I suspect the latter. If you recall, Labor was saying it is completely and utterly inappropriate to release any of the business plan, that it was top-secret stuff and that it would take them more than 14 days to analyse the 400 pages to determine what should be deleted. All it took was one Independent senator to say, ‘I’m not sure that’s good enough.’ All of a sudden they can produce 36 pages of documentation which allegedly does tell us all about that business plan, which only two hours earlier had been ruled out as being completely unacceptable. This is from a government that got into government doing deals with the Australian Greens and the country Independents on one very important proviso: we would have ‘Operation Sunlight’—there would be complete transparency, there would be openness and there would be no secrecy. And what do we have? The Independents and the Australian Greens, cap in hand, voting with the Australian Labor Party to ensure that there is no transparency, no accountability and no openness. Undoubtedly, a side deal has been done and we will see later on, in the course of this parliament—some time next year, no doubt—as to what that side deal is and how the Labor dog is going to be wagged, especially by its newly found Green tail.

The minister clearly has to tell us whether that is an error on page 7 of the document. He also needs to tell us the time line. We move to page 8, where it says:

Once NBN Co’s Corporate Plan is approved by Government ...

So we are being asked to vote for this legislation to help assist NBN Co. get established and underway when the NBN’s corporate plan has still not been approved by the government. How can any senator who takes his or her responsibility seriously vote for this legislation, let alone vote to gag discussion of this legislation, when those fundamental and foundational documents, which should be available to us, have not been provided and which, as a result, are denying us the opportunity to make a rational, sound and considered decision?

I have reminded the Greens and I have reminded the crossbenchers, and I do so again: you know what happened when you went along with the Labor agenda in relation to pink batts, Building the Education Revolution and the Green Loans scheme. It seems those lessons have been lost on you. Those lessons have meant absolutely nothing. You mucked up with a $1 billion plan for pink batts, an eight-hundred-and-something-million-dollar plan for Green Loans, and the multi-multi-billion-dollar plan on Building the Education Revolution. That was only small fry. Let’s see if we can really muck it up with something big and make it worthwhile, like a $43,000 million plan.

Of course, there is no business plan before us. There is no corporate plan. There is no government response to the implementation study. There is no Greenhill Caliburn consideration of the business plan before us. None of those documents are before us. How could any person seeking to parade any scintilla of independence come into this chamber and give a blank cheque to the Australian Labor Party—given its past history of mismanagement—to deal with this issue in this manner? Any suggestion of independence, any suggestion of really considering this matter in detail, is completely and utterly thrown out the window—especially when you support the gag, especially when you seek to do everything to truncate debate on this fundamental infrastructure project for our nation.