Turnbull addicted to opposing: Conroy

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy yesterday afternoon returned fire on his new shadow, Malcolm Turnbull, accusing the Liberal heavyweight of mindless opposition on the National Broadband Network issue.

Just hours after winning the post yesterday, Turnbull blasted the NBN, saying it would waste tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money.

Conroy took a swipe back at Turnbull on ABC's 24-hour news channel yesterday afternoon. "He came out and opposed, opposed, opposed. He opposed legislation almost unilaterally. It doesn't matter what it was, he opposed it all when he became leader and the same is happening again," Conroy said.

"We have this piece of legislation that Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull won't pass in the parliament and have stalled for eight months," the communications minister added, seeming to refer to Labor's key piece of telecommunications industry reform legislation that includes provisions for the potential separation of Telstra.

"There will be a slower roll-out, there will be a more expensive total cost of the build caused by Tony Abbott. We will have more overhead cabling because of Tony Abbott," he said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott yesterday morning told ABC Radio National that no country around the globe had proposed to spend such a large amount as $43 billion on broadband, which is what Labor had pledged to spend with the NBN project, although NBN Co expects its deal with Telstra to cut down that cost significantly.

Conroy went on to say that just because England and the United States hadn't gone for "world class", it didn't mean the Gillard Government would accept less.

The Coalition has also criticised Labor's deal with several independent MPs that will see the NBN rolled out in regional areas first as opposed to city areas. Conroy acknowledged NBN Co would receive a faster revenue stream due to a higher population density if the infrastructure hit city areas first.

However, the politician said people were assuming the roll-outs were planned to start in metropolitan areas when only a handful of the first stage roll-outs were actually planned for the city areas.