Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I have always admired your capacity to find the most tenuous link possible, but I will concede you have found a tenuous link for your questions, so I am happy to respond because there is just a glimmer that this is all relevant to the bill. Unfortunately, some of your base assumptions are wrong and you are not comparing apples with apples; that is probably the short answer. Firstly, prices are forecast to fall under the NBN business plan. That is the first thing, so the question about recovering through increased prices over time is wrong. As for the words 'over time', 'over time' was referring to the length of years to generate the return. The seven per cent return is over time. So your concern that it meant that NBN was putting up prices was unfounded. I will be kind and say it was unfounded.