Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to outline Labor's position on the Communications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation and Other Measures) Bill 2015 and the amendment that Labor has proposed and already foreshadowed regarding nbn co. Labor is supportive of many aspects of this bill. This bill will amend unnecessary administrative requirements imposed on broadcasting and datacasting licensees under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. It will remove tariff-filing requirements for certain carriers and carriage service providers and amend the role of ACMA with regard to the monitoring and reporting of information. It will also repeal redundant legislation and spent acts and provide a framework so the telecommunication industry is able to develop an industry scheme to manage telephone numbering.

Labor is also supportive of the related Telecommunications (Numbering Charges) Amendment Bill 2015, which makes consequential amendments to the Telecommunications (Numbering Charges) Amendment Act 1997, to reflect changes made by the deregulation bill. Yet because of the refusal of the Turnbull government to provide the most basic information about nbn co, Labor has been forced to seek to amend the Communications Legislation Amendment (Deregulation and Other Measures) Bill 2015.

The reality is that nbn co and the Turnbull government will not provide the Australian parliament and people with basic financial information about how nbn co intends to spend the $29.5 billion that taxpayers are investing into the project. I just want to make sure that the enormity of that figure is sinking in: $29.5 billion of taxpayer's money and yet basic information is not being provided. The NBN financial transparency amendment seeks basic financial and deployment information that historically has always been publicly provided as part of nbn co's corporate plan, but is not included in—or has been deliberately excluded from—nbn co's latest corporate plan, Corporate plan 2016.

The Senate has asked for this information on countless occasions: in Senate committee hearings, in questions put on the notice paper and most recently through the orders for the production of documents. On every occasion, the government has refused to provide the Senate with this information. The government's claim of commercial-in-confidence in relation to this information is nonsense. The information sought is high level forecast information that historically has been made public. The parliament and the people of Australia have a right to know how nbn co is investing their $30 billion of taxpayer dollars, including how much the network will cost to build, total capital expenditure, how much the network will cost to operate by build completion, total operating expenditure, how much money it will make by build completion and total revenues.

I note there are senators on the other side of the chamber—I note Senator Smith, who has been a vocal advocate for making sure that there is greater accountability in how public money is being spent and has been a strong advocate in the past for disclosure and transparency when it comes to the issue of taxpayer dollars—who are the same senators who have argued very strongly for fiscal restraint. I look forward opportunity to have them vote with Labor on this amendment that is simply seeking more transparency and more information.