Taxpayers will foot only a fraction of the government's planned $42 billion national broadband network, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says.
The government is under fire for wasting $17 million of its own money on an earlier fibre-to-the-node network plan, which was shelved after a tender process.
An audit office report found the process cost the government and proponents more than $30 million. Mr Tanner denied there had been a blowout in the cost of creating a national broadband network.
The government has moved to a much more comprehensive proposal than the original proposition "to wire up virtually the entire nation".
"That's obviously expensive," he told ABC Radio on Thursday, adding the $42 billion cost was not the taxpayer commitment to the project.
"We anticipate the taxpayer contribution to be only a fraction of that." The rest would come from private equity contributions and borrowings.
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