Shadow Communications Minister Nick Minchin has demanded his opposite Stephen Conroy release reports from the National Broadband Network expert panel and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as the Senate ordered in February.
Shadow Communications Minister Nick Minchin has demanded his opposite Stephen Conroy release reports from the National Broadband Network expert panel and Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as the Senate ordered in February.
I remind Senator Conroy of his obligation to comply with the
order and will of the Senate.
"I remind Senator Conroy of his obligation to comply with the
order and will of the Senate, which passed a clear and concise
motion to release these reports in full the day after the
conclusion of the tender process," Minchin said.
In February, Minchin submitted a motion to the Senate which
would have had that report and the regulatory report from the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released the next
day. A compromise led to the motion being amended so that the
documents would be tabled "the day after the winning bid is
announced", or today.
"In fact, Senator Conroy actually welcomed this motion and now
the Australian public would welcome some transparency from this
embattled minister," Minchin said.
Senator Conroy obviously has things to hide, he says he
followed the advice of his expert's panel, it is now time for him
to prove it.
Nick Minchin
Yet the minister won't be releasing the documents in question,
as a spokesperson for Conroy told ZDNet.com.au this
morning.
"Senator Conroy obviously has things to hide, he says he
followed the advice of his expert's panel, it is now time for him
to prove it," Minchin said.
The government had spent $20 million on the running of the
tender, and taxpayers had the right to see what they had paid for,
he believed.
"This is a further abuse of his position and is symbolic of the
appalling way he has handled this process from the very
beginning."
When asked if the Senate order was no longer valid, Conroy's spokesperson told ZDNet.com.au to examine the wording on the
motion and said again that the NBN process had been terminated.
This appeared to echo earlier speculation that the phrase "the day after the
winning bid is announced" could be used as a loophole to sidestep
the motion as no winning bid was announced.
The opposition believed the fact that the process was actually
terminated provided a greater obligation to Conroy to make the reports public.
