Senator FIFIELD (Victoria—Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Assistant Minister for Social Services) (14:54): I thank Senator Ruston for her question and acknowledge her sterling chairing of the Senate Environment and Communications Committee. I am very pleased to inform the Senate that, as announced by the minister last week, the NBN will embark on one of Australia's largest workforce training initiatives to ensure that the network can be rolled out sooner and at less cost to the taxpayer. Senator Conroy interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Senator Conroy! Senator FIFIELD: Under the workforce training scheme, the NBN will work with delivery partners to recruit and train around 4½ thousand workers. This will see the current project construction workforce double, with around 9,000 workers employed at the peak of the rollout. This will address identified skill shortages. NBN will work with partners to ensure that trained workers have jobs after their training and stay working on the project and in the telecoms industry as the project proceeds. Importantly, the scheme will target both school leavers and people who have worked in the industry who require retraining. Senator Conroy interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Senator Conroy! Senator FIFIELD: The NBN is the largest infrastructure project in the nation's history. It is certainly the most complex. Each day the project is being rolled out on hundreds of work fronts across the country, so it is absolutely essential that we have enough people to roll out the network as we increase the pace of the rollout.