Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

The Gillard Labor government is a government that is full of pathetic excuses—and it has a lot of sheep in it that continue to bleat on the other side of the chamber. If this government was truly serious about winning, in the proper manner, the support of the parliament for its legislation, it would have been open, accountable and transparent from day one.

Instead of this, the government has provided today to the Australian taxpayer—after backing away from requiring certain senators to sign a seven-year confidentiality agreement in relation to any information they might be given on the NBN business case—what they like to call a ‘summary’ of the NBN business case. We all know it is actually a few scraps of information with some warm, fuzzy words and pretty little pictures. They deign to call that a ‘summary of a business case’! Australians are entitled to know the full details of the business plan for the spend of their taxpayer dollar. This government has a track record of being negligent when it comes to economic policy. It is incumbent on those on the other side to show the people of Australia exactly how they intend spending an inordinately large amount of taxpayer money.