In business as in politics, the truth will always out. We caught a glimpse of this at last week’s Telstra annual general meeting when board chairman John Mullen offered a rare “mea culpa” for his company's intransigence during the tender process for the National Broadband Network more than a decade ago.

This stonewalling by Telstra was so obscene that then treasury secretary Ken Henry’s panel of experts persuaded my cabinet to recommend building a full-fibre NBN ourselves and recouping the money later through a public float.