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

Mr Turnbull has once again willingly misled the public with his false claims of a blow-out and a fiddle in relation to the treatment of the NBN in the budget. His claims that $450 million of additional departmental expenditure in 2011-12 has been brought forward are simply false. The payments are made to Telstra under the terms of the definitive agreement. This is neither new nor news, as those agreements came into force on 7 March 2012 and their treatment within the budget was outlined in a press release distributed on that day. Similarly, the claim of a $400 million blow-out in equity is false, as it simply reflects the equity funding of $350 million deferred from 2011-12 to 2012-13. (Time expired)