The Federal Coalition is utterly opposed to Labor’s legislative attempt to force the break-up of Telstra, and will vote against it in the Senate.

Labor’s legislation is a deliberate assault on Telstra and its 1.4 million shareholders and 30,000 employees.

As we’ve said from day one, Telstra shareholders have every reason to be outraged by Labor’s plans to force the break-up of the company.

The Coalition has never advocated the forced break up of Telstra and this was never part of Labor’s plan before the last election.

Labor’s attempt to force the break up of Telstra is all about trying to prop up their reckless $43 billion NBN, which they embarked upon without a cost-benefit-analysis or a business plan.

This bully boy legislative attack on Telstra and its shareholders is an admission that their NBN isn't commercially viable.

The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009 also proposes a range of reforms with respect to the access regime and the competition and consumer landscape.

Whilst there are a number of proposals that would require careful consideration, the Coalition has repeatedly said it supports sensible telecommunications reforms and enhanced consumer safeguards.

Importantly, these issues should also be considered comprehensively following both the release and detailed consideration of the NBN Implementation study and the final legislation for the NBN Co (National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures – Access Arrangements) Bill 2010) which is currently only in draft form.