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

I would have hoped that the minister might have been paying enough attention to this debate to be in his seat to actually answer some very serious questions that Senator Birmingham has raised. In fact, I am reluctant to do this, but perhaps we should note that there are not a lot of Labor Party people in the chamber on this particular occasion. I am not standing up here to make a speech; I am standing here to actually ask the minister a question. But with his typical arrogance and impoliteness he is not even bothering to show the Senate the courtesy of listening to the questions and answering them. (Quorum formed) Can I just warn members of the Labor Party that they should hang around because, if we are not going to even have the minister sitting in his place listening to the questions we are asking, they can be assured that we may notice if most of the Labor Party people are not in the chamber for this very important debate.

I hope that those people listening to this debate on the radio or on their laptops understand that this involves Australia's biggest ever infrastructure project of $55-plus billion, which the taxpayers, the people listening to this broadcast, will at some stage have to pay for. Everybody, including the minister, knows that it will never make a profit. It will never pay a commercial rate of return on the money the government is spending. Yet we cannot even have in this very important debate a minister who will listen to and answer the questions that are being put to him.

I will now proceed. I see the minister is back in his place. Whether he is listening is another thing. I would like the minister to answer Senator Birmingham's questions. I have a similar question. Perhaps I will frame it in a slightly different way that hopefully the minister will be able to respond to clearly. Minister, is it the fact that the developer in a greenfield site has the option of either waiting for NBN to install the fibre at no cost or alternatively paying a private contractor to put in the infrastructure? Are those the two alternatives? It is my understanding that that is correct, but I seek your response. It is my understanding that that is correct because that is the evidence that was given to the joint committee oversighting the NBN and providing some comment on what is happening. First of all, just clarify that for me. Is that correct? If it is correct, why would any developer pay a private contractor to do something that the developer could get for free from the taxpayer through NBN?