The Morrison Government needs to stop obfuscating and come clean on the extent to which Australian taxpayers have been fleeced by the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government’s flawed decision to use HFC as part of its second-rate NBN.

In April 2016 it was reported NBNCo had reached a $1.6 billion deal with Telstra to support aspects of the HFC rollout. At the time of the announcement, NBNCo was planning to deploy HFC to 4.0 million homes.

However, due to ongoing reliability issues and cost blowouts, NBNCo is now planning to deploy HFC to only 2.5 million homes.

Given the 37.5 per cent reduction in the number of proposed premises passed by HFC, it would be reasonable to assume the cost of the Telstra HFC deal should have also decreased.

The Senate has given NBNCo several opportunities to clarify this has occurred - but NBNCo has so far refused to do so.

The underlying build cost of HFC on the NBN has increased by a staggering 64 per cent since 2015.

In contrast, over the same period, countries such as New Zealand, the UK and the US have reduced the cost of deploying Fibre to the Premises by between 40 and 50 per cent.

On every measure, the Liberals’ disastrous decision to adopt HFC has left taxpayers and consumer worse off.

It’s time the Morrison Government came clean about what the true scope of the impact is.