Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

This is a matter which concerns not only the coalition but also many in Australia who are looking for a profitable commercial communications industry and network across Australia. As Senator Birmingham has very rightly pointed out—and as many of the witnesses to the committee hearings into these bills have said—there is a genuine concern that the NBN Co. will enter into the retail area.

One of the reasons that makes that suggestion believable is that on the current figures we have clearly the government is never going to get a commercial return on the $50-odd billion that it is spending on this. I appreciate and anticipate Senator Conroy’s objections that it is not $50 billion but, once you add up what they are going to pay to Telstra, in a global sense this is going to be a $50 billion investment by the taxpayer in this national broadband network.

I will just interpose on myself there to remind everyone that for about $5 billion a fast broadband service would already have been operating in Australia had the coalition won the 2007 election. We had issued contracts for a mix of fibre, wireless and satellite that would have provided a very fast broadband service to everyone in Australia at a cost of about $5 billion. It was gazumped by the Labor Party prior to the 2007 election by promising that they could provide a national broadband network for $4.7 billion—a little bit cheaper.