"Ladies and gentlemen, this looks like a gift but it is a gift that we will be paying for again and again, our children and their children. It is a gift funded by debt that we must repay. It is a gift that does not give," Abbott said.

Abbott's mixed signals on the NBN follow comments from Opposition communication minister, Malcolm Turnbull in October, that the Opposition had decided to following

"Telstra is committed now to structural separation, and I think it would be in the interests of competition generally, and indeed in the interests of shareholders if there was an effective separation, but it would have to be on terms that gave security, in terms of pricing, to that separated network company," Turnbull said at the time.

In March, Senator Nick Minchin, then acting as the shadow minister handling the separation bill and himself a former shadow communications minister, said

"The opposition will be opposing the bill as it is an extraordinary attack on a substantial publicly-listed company by the Australian Government," he said at the time.