The Australian Greens remain deeply concerned the Commonwealth's planned National Broadband Network will repeat the privatisation mistakes of Telstra, and lock many Australians out of the new digital age.

A Senate Select Committee report tabled today reaffirms Labor's intention to build the NBN with a huge investment of public funds, and then privatise it all over again after five years.

"We have previously warned the Government not to allow a repeat of the Telstra privatisation debacle, yet it plans to eventually sell down the Commonwealth's stake as though nothing has been learned," Australians Greens Spokesperson on Communications, Senator Scott Ludlam said today.

"The Greens have been broadly supportive of the NBN, but we will continue to urge the Government to insist on taking a majority equity stake and operating it as a competitively neutral, open access network - as we've been doing for some time.

"It is long past time for the public interest to prevail over the short term commercial interests, that have dominated telco markets for so long," he concluded.

The Greens' contribution to the select committee's interim report can be found here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/broadband_ctte/third_report/index...

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