Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for your question, Senator Birmingham. The agreement that was reached when Minister Shorten and I convened a meeting of the companies involved—subcontractors, Telstra, NBN Co. and the unions involved—was for remediation work on asbestos. Telstra had already halted their asbestos handling and NBN Co. agreed to halt theirs while these issues were being worked through. I believe there is another meeting taking place today at some stage—it could even be finished by now—that is resolving these issues so that everyone can be sure that all of the standards are being followed.

Senator Abetz interjecting—

You had the opportunity to ask some questions about this at Senate estimates, and I think you did. As Mr Quigley has said consistently, asbestos was a known factor before—