Use NBN cash for flood relief: Abbott

The federal coalition has called for the national broadband network (NBN) to be scrapped and the money pumped into flood reconstruction efforts instead.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said on Tuesday Labor had to stop spending on unnecessary projects so it could start doing more to help flood-stricken Queensland and possibly Victoria.

"The national broadband network is a luxury that Australia cannot now afford," he told reporters in Sydney.

"The one thing you don't do is re-do your bathroom when the roof has just been blown off and that's the situation that we find ourselves in right now."

Abbott also expressed concern that NBN Co, the company behind the massive infrastructure rollout, didn't have to comply with freedom of information (FOI) laws.

"This really is a project that doesn't stack up and it shouldn't go ahead ... at a time like this," he said.

NBN Co may be forced to divulge some of its secrets if the coalition and the Australian Greens manage to change the relevant FOI regulations when parliament resumes next month.

Opposition communications spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, has vowed to challenge the exemption in Canberra.

"The government, when it came into office, said every major infrastructure project would be subject to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, and it said it would open up freedom of information laws and it would provide greater scrutiny," he told ABC Radio.

"And yet with this, the greatest infrastructure project in our history, there is no analysis being allowed."

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the NBN Co's exemption from FOI laws was not obstructionism on Labor's part.

"My understanding is this is the ordinary operation of the Freedom of Information Act, that a body like NBN Co would not be subject to it," she told reporters in Melbourne.

But Greens communication spokesman, Scott Ludlam, said it was unacceptable for a public enterprise investing about $27.5 billion of taxpayers' money to not be subject to FOI laws.

"We are supportive of the rollout of rapid telecommunications to all parts of the country," he said.

"But we believe maximum transparency is the best way to build public confidence in the national broadband network."

The Greens refused to support the coalition's bid for a full cost-benefit analysis of the NBN last year.

However, the minor party will now have to rely on the Liberals and Nationals to pass its own amendments to FOI regulations that would aim to shine a spotlight on NBN Co.

Senator Ludlam said Labor claimed NBN Co was exempt from FOI requests because it was an incorporated body.

But, he said, an incorporated body could be covered by the laws if it was set up by a minister or an incorporated company over which the government was in a position of control.

Senator Ludlam said NBN Co clearly met both of those criteria and that government-run corporations, including Australia Post and the ABC, were subject to FOI laws.

Their commercial dealings could still be protected under commercial-in-confidence considerations, he added.

"We think those same tests should be applied to the NBN," Senator Ludlam said.

"I don't understand why the government has left them off."

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