Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has ruled out selling the NBN to Telstra when the rollout of the $51 billion project is completed.
Mr Fletcher says safeguards within existing laws prevent retail telcos like Telstra from owning the network and doesn’t foresee “any prospect of that restriction being changed.”
The rollout of the NBN is expected to be completed next year, but Mr Fletcher says the government is still "quite some way" from looking at any change of ownership to the taxpayer-funded network.