Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, if you are happy to stand up and say, ‘I am happy for the NBN Co. to become vertically integrated and to step into the retail space,’ then that is fine. Until you say that, if you are going to continue with the charade of pretending that you want this to be a wholesale only service on the one hand yet leaving a gaping gap wide open for NBN Co. to engage in retail service provision direct to customers on the other hand, then that is fine; be frank and honest about it. As long as you continue the charade of saying one thing but promulgating this bill that does something totally different, we will continue the debate arguing that you have got it wrong and that you should front up to that fact. Minister, please, I urge you to recognise that your definition of wholesale does not match anybody else’s.