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

a filibuster from us, thank you for the interjection. But what complete and utter rubbish and what a filibuster that is! The minister has been quite duplicitous in making that claim because this bill was introduced on 15 September 2009, but the key issue is that it was introduced prior to the deal with Telstra, which happened in the middle of this year, from recollection. And on 20 October a very different bill was introduced into the House, a very different bill indeed, which took into account those quite dramatic changes that followed on from the deal with Telstra. A completely different bill post the Telstra deal. It was introduced into the Senate on 17 November, so effectively this chamber will have five to six days to debate probably the greatest spend in this country’s history. And today we have had the quite remarkable scene of the protectors of democracy—the Greens, aided and abetted by the two Independents, of whom I thought a lot more—making sure that this parliament, this Senate, is not debating matters this morning.

Prime Minister Gillard must be terribly, terribly proud of that. This is the openness and transparency—is this the new Julia? The new Julia has done a grubby deal with the Greens, walking now hand in hand to make sure that you, Minister, and your party are being removed as the party of the workers to a party that now is fully rusted on to the Greens philosophical view of life. When you leave this place and that is the legacy you have left, then I do not think you will be doing it with any pride at all because I know what your personal philosophical views are and they are so far removed from the Australian Greens. But you and your colleagues on the right of the Australian Labor Party have been prepared to sign up to a grubby deal with a grubby political party which does not represent in any way the views of average Australians. So no more, please, of this ‘12-month filibustering’; you know as well as I do that this is an entirely different bill.

I refer to press commentary today, particularly from Terry McCrann, who I think everyone would agree is a respected economic commentator. The by-line says ‘NBN “case” nonsense’:

It might have been one small step for independent senator Nick Xenophon. It proved to be one gigantic leap—backwards—for the rest of us.

The 36-page so-called “NBN Co Business Case Summary” was a complete joke. If it’s at all an accurate indicator of what’s in the “full” Business Case, NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley and his irresponsible minister Stephen Conroy should both be sacked.

I will not go on with the rest of the article. As the shadow minister, Mr Wentworth, from the other place made quite clear on the AM program this morning:

Well it’s a very inadequate document. It doesn’t have any financial statements, it doesn’t have a profit and loss, it doesn’t have a balance sheet, it doesn’t have any cash flow statements, it really isn’t an adequate basis on which to make a $43 billion decision.

The government’s recklessness is extraordinary. The Prime Minister has not read the full business plan. The Treasurer has not read the full business plan. It apparently has not gone to the cabinet.

I ask the minister while we are in committee: have you read the full business plan? The minister will not acknowledge whether he has or has not read the full business plan. From that I take it that the minister has not read the full business plan, because surely if he had he would have said so. So here we have a minister who is signing up to nearly $50 billion of taxpayers’ expenditure, who has not himself read the business case. It is extraordinary. And this government stands utterly condemned for signing up the Australian taxpayer to nearly $50 billion—and I suspect it will be closer to $70 billion or $80 billion by the time we finish. Indeed, if you look at commentary from the Alliance for Affordable Broadband, who I understand have written a letter to Mike Quigley today—and if you go through at some length the letter, which I will seek to table at the end of my contribution—the matters raised in this letter should fill every one of us with complete and utter horror. The horror expressed today by Terry McCrann is replicated by others.

I want to ask a number of questions of the minister. Is it correct that the Telstra cost is now at some $13.8 billion? The minister is refusing to answer any questions from the opposition members while he is fiddling with his BlackBerry. That is fine. I will just ask them and others will judge the minister’s inability or failure to answer questions. What is the actual cost of the Telstra payment? Originally the statements indicated, I think, that there were two amounts: $9 billion plus $2 billion, making $11 billion. This report now says it is $13.8 billion. There was also a report in one of the newspapers back in August which said the full payment from the NBN was $16 billion on a pre-tax basis. So, Minister, what are the true figures before and after tax? Are you able to say whether Telstra, for example, will have a capital gains tax bill as a result of this payment? Indeed, the last paragraph on page 30 of this extraordinary document, as it was quite rightly called by Senator Joyce—this remarkable document which says nothing, which Terry McCrann says is a ‘pure nonsense’ and a complete and utter joke—talks about, as Senator Joyce may have raised briefly, how the NBN will start paying cash dividends in 2020 and, allegedly, will repay the government’s entire investment by 2034. Minister, is the NBN paying interest to the government? I think you could probably assist me by saying yes or no to whether they are. If they are then I will not have to proceed with the rest of my questions. If they are not then I will. So are they paying interest or not?