The Australian Greens have secured safeguards making any future privatisation of the National Broadband Network subject to a full public inquiry and vote in parliament.
"The point of this exercise is to make it as difficult as possible for a future Government to put us through a repeat of the Telstra privatisation debacle," Senator Scott Ludlam said.
"If we're going to the expense of $11 billion to bring Telstra's networks back into public hands, we'd rather not repeat the whole privatisation mess in 13 years time."
"Under the originally proposed legislation the sale would have been triggered automatically five years after the completion of the Network," he said. "With the amendments we have negotiated, any proposed sale will be subject to a study to determine if it is in the public interest and votes in both houses of parliament."
"The study will involve a joint Parliamentary inquiry and the productivity commission working through detailed terms of reference."
"The debate on the separation of Telstra which finally gets under way today, is the first important step in fixing the debacle of the Telstra privatisation."