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

The member for Wentworth said in an address to the Broadband World Forum in Paris—what a coincidence; he must have been checking out some shares—in September last year:

We will seek to achieve an outcome where facilities based competition is restored and enabled, not prohibited and where the provision of network services is undertaken by the private sector, not the government

The Leader of the Opposition joined him in this criticism, telling the AIG national forum in November:

The National Broadband Network is a great leap backwards to the 1960s; a government controlled telecommunications infrastructure monopoly …

But last night, Mr Turnbull confirmed his plan for NBN to acquire Telstra's copper to build its network. So let there be no misunderstanding: NBN Co. under Mr Turnbull will be a government-owned monopoly.