Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The National Party has always had concerns about structural separation. The issue here of course is that this legislation ties up with another very substantive issue, NBN, which is—we do not know. It is $35.7 billion if you cost it one way and probably in excess of $50 billion if you choose to cost it in other ways, but somewhere in between, most likely. Because of its close association with that major reason for Australia to go further into debt, we need to be very diligent about exactly what we are doing here. We can have our concerns, as we do, in the National Party about needing structural separation. Actually, I believe those concerns are held all around the chamber. But just because you believe in something does not mean you believe in any possible way to get to it, because any possible way, as in the way the Labor Party are doing it, has all sorts of hairs all over it. The biggest concern is the debt that you end up landing us in and the fact that you are unable to prove to us that you can actually pay that debt back or that there is an actual benefit from that debt. That is the crux of it.