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

The government announced that it will conduct an open tender process for the Australia Network in November last year, and, as is normal practice for these matters, placed an official public notification of the tender on AusTender on 4 February of this year. Tenderers were given until 25 March to respond. The tenders were considered by an independent panel of government officials in a process which, again—as is normal practice for such a large tender—took several months.