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

The out there minister; the minister out there—I should say, Minister Stephen Conroy. In Armidale, there was Minister Conroy, the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, the Labor aligned Independent, Tony Windsor, and a few other people, and they all put their hands on the button. Down the button went, but the trouble was that the button was not connected to anything. The seven customers there were actually connected beforehand. What the button actually did, God only knows, but it looked really good. It was right up there with the 'Hour of Disney'—lots of flashing lights! I have complete confidence in what happened up in Armidale! But now we have to have complete confidence in the Labor Party and the NBN. With the invest­ment of the Australian taxpayers' money in this process there has to be some sort of purpose to what we are doing. We do not, in the coalition of the National Party and Liberal Party, not believe in fibre; we absolutely do if it is fibre to the node and not fibre to every house. Let us clearly spell that out. We are having huge advancements now in wireless—

Senator Conroy interjecting—

I have got complete confidence in your capacity. There are a number of amendments we will be looking at under this telecommunications legislation. One is where they are trying to bring in this sort of new monopoly to squash out of the marketplace independent providers who go into a residential area to install fibre. We believe in small business, and small business has the capacity to do that. Our amendment goes to making sure that we do not lose those independent providers of the installation of fibre. And it does make sense that as new subdivisions come on site that people look at the installation of fibre—

Senator Conroy interjecting—

What are you saying? I have complete confidence in you, Minister. The Prime Minister has complete confidence in the member for Dobell, and I have complete confidence in your story. The member for Dobell is telling the truth; I have complete confidence in that! There is no doubt about it: somebody broke into his house and stole his credit card, his licence and his phone, and they drove down to Surry Hills. They managed to make a few phone calls on the way. I hope the phone did not have a code lock on it. They must have known the code. That thief looked awfully like Craig Thomson and signed something with a signature that looked awfully like Craig Thomson's signature, and then after a certain transaction, which we will not go into because it will scare the kiddies, went back up to Central Coast at which point in time they must have broken back into the house and put everything back where they found it. That is a marvellous story and the Prime Minister has complete confidence in that story! And I have complete confidence in the NBN! I think it is going to work! It is a plausible idea! I have complete confidence in their capacity to bring the budget back to surplus!

Let us go into this confidence trick, because that is what we have got. It is absurd that we are now going to lock ourselves into a place where a monopoly is going to have the capacity to jack up prices and basically rip it out of the consumers. That is not a good outcome. It is also not good that we have a monopoly going in and basically knocking out of the market the private providers of fibre rollout. That is obviously a very bad outcome. I am glad to hear that the Greens are considering those amendments. We will not lock them in. But I am glad to see that they are considering them. I am sure that—and I do not want to say with complete confidence—in due course you will make your mind up about them.

We must also make sure that the Labor Party are truly held to account over the fact that they have not brought unit pricing to regional Australia.

An honourable senator: Are you voting for these?

You can have complete confidence that you will find out. Unit pricing is an issue that the Labor Party voted against and the Independents voted against. Did the Greens vote against unit pricing for regional areas? I am not quite sure whether the Greens voted against unit pricing for regional areas. They made a speech about unit pricing for regional areas.

An honourable senator: They voted against it.

Oh! They voted against it. The Australian Greens voted against unit pricing for regional areas. They actually believed that people were naive enough that they could pull the wool over their eyes. Unit pricing in the delivery of a product is obviously download speed. That is where you should have the unit pricing. You did not believe in that; you voted against it. Your credentials on unit pricing and parity and fairness are there for all to see in the way you voted on amendment (2) on subsection 151 DA(6). That was it and you voted against it.

An honourable senator: The amendment was written in crayon!