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

I thank Senator Birmingham for his interest in the issue. As I was saying, the decision has not been taken lightly, but the government acted on the legal advice it had received from the Australian Government Solicitor. The government has asked the ABC to continue delivering the service until August 2012 while the government resolves the long-term contractual arrangements. The government will now undertake a fresh consideration of the Australia Network service and how best to deliver it to regions in our field of interest. We will consider the full range of options at our disposal. As I said, the government will make a decision by no later than the end of March next year.

The government received the advice that the tender had been potentially compromised and decided to act accordingly to terminate the tender process. We believe it is the right decision in the national interest and in the interests of both bidders. The tender process has been cancelled and is now the subject of an AFP investigation. I am not in a position to comment any further on that ongoing AFP investigation. I am not in a position to say more than that while the investigation is under way.

To the point that has been raised—and I think Senator Birmingham also added this in the series of questions he asked—the first reports concerning the details of the tender process contained significant inaccuracies, which did not justify a referral to the AFP for investigation. You only need to look at the story written by Mark Day, as he gleefully pointed out the inaccuracies of the earlier report, to understand that the earlier report did not— (Time expired)