Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Fifield does not ski—but he would be an excellent skier if he chose to do so! All I would say is that Senator Fifield, unlike Senator Conroy, is absolutely committed to delivering value for money and to delivering on time. To this government, it is not suitable or appropriate to pursue a massive agenda that has been cobbled together, literally on the back of a napkin or coaster on a private jet, between Senator Conroy and then Prime Minister Rudd that and that was going to commit this nation to tens of billions of dollars in costs. Over the last two years, the costs have been detailed and the appropriate cost-benefit analysis has been done, and we are delivering to the people of Australia what Australia can afford in order to upgrade us into the internet century.

I am one of the beneficiaries of the NBN, I have to say—much to the chagrin of the other side! I am quite diligent in my communications via the internet, including setting up various appropriate organisations that will facilitate political discourse in this country. The NBN is a fantastic service. It is an extraordinary service that has been delivered to my house, to my neighbours, to my suburb and to my community by the Abbott and Turnbull governments. The beautiful thing about it is that it allows my family, like every other family in the street, to access content-rich media, the requirements of work practices and the new transmissions of digital content on demand and video on demand et cetera in a manner which was hitherto unavailable to us. Rolling out that sort of technology—developing it and delivering it on time in an efficient manner—has been a priority of this government, and I for one am absolutely delighted with it.

I regret that Senator Polley was not able to put aside politics and her personal and partisan attacks to celebrate the fact that we now have a minister in charge of communications who has applied himself so diligently to what has sometimes been a fraught area of policy concern in terms of how we were going to manage to deliver the maximum benefits to people with disabilities, those most in need. He has dealt with that in an exemplary manner. If we can do that in other areas of policy—and, in this regard, it is up to ministers like Senator Fifield to deliver—the nation will be much, much better off.

So, rather than petty point-scoring, using trumped-up numbers and expressing confected outrage, as Senator Polley just did, I urge the opposition to join the government in delivering for the people of Australia. I urge and encourage them to be positive about the opportunities that are before us, because our priorities for the country should be the same. They are about the economy. They are about delivering jobs. They are about delivering infrastructure. That is what is important to the people of Australia. It is a pity it is not important to the opposition. (Time expired)