CANBERRA (AAP)

Labor's high-speed internet plan will end Australia's status as "broadband backwater", communications spokesman Stephen Conroy says.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has announced a $4.7 billion plan to set up a broadband network, drawing criticism from the government for proposing to draw some of that money from the Future Fund.

However Treasurer Peter Costello says Mr Rudd was raiding future retirees' money with his plan.

Future generations would look back at Mr Rudd as the bear who raided the honeypot, Mr Costello said.

"What Labor is proposing to do is take that money away from rural and regional Australia, and it's $2 billion," Mr Costello told ABC radio.

"Then it's planning to raid Australia's Future Fund in order to put money out there into something which really is being attended to by the private sector, which can be funded by the private sector, but worst of all will take money away from future generations just at a time when we're facing the ageing of the population, and that's what's irresponsible about this."

But Mr Conroy rejects this.

"What's economic vandalism is to let this country slide into the broadband backwater it's become."

Senator Conroy said Future Fund projections showed the government's superannuation obligations would be met by the target date of 2020.

"There is no issue that these superannuation funds won't be fully met."

Mr Rudd had to make tough decisions to win this year's election, he said.

"He took a tough decision yesterday and the caucus overwhelmingly endorsed the proposition Kevin put forward."

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce said Mr Rudd had consulted neither the community nor Labor backbenchers on the plan.

"I think it's the absolute height of arrogance to turn up to your own party and say `well, this is what we've decided, you're all going to do but we never told you about it and now you have to swallow it and accept it'," Senator Joyce said.

He accused Labor of hypocrisy for wanting to sell the government's remaining shareholding in Telstra which is held in the Future Fund.

"The Labor Party were lying last year when they were going through that false tirade they had in the Senate about how evil it is to privatise Telstra when their main man, Stephen Conroy, always knew that he was going to privatise it anyhow," Senator Joyce said.

His Nationals colleague Ron Boswell said the initiative showed up Labor's poor economic credentials.

"They can't keep their hand out of the till," Senator Boswell said.

Both the Australian Democrats and the Australian Greens backed Labor's broadband plan.

"The Future Fund is full of money from telecommunications from the sale of Telstra, so in a way it's not inappropriate that money is spent on telecommunications," Democrats leader Lynn Allison said.

But Senator Allison said she would need to know the detail of the plan before offering full support.

"If this is just a handout to Telstra so it can protect its own patch, it'll be problematic," she said.

Greens senator Bob Brown said Australians deserved a good broadband network and the government's loud objections were suspect.

"(Treasurer) Peter Costello sounded a little bit shrill yesterday," Senator Brown said.

"He sounded like he'd been gazumped."
22/03/2007 09:18:22 AM