Independent MP Bob Katter praises Labor for the National Broadband Network (NBN) as the project again emerges as a factor in the selection of the next Australian government. Katter, who ended up siding with the Coalition, said that he had to pay a "very great tribute" to the former Rudd government for its pursuit of the project as an example of a government not buying votes.

Katter, speaking on ABC television, said "I have watched for 20 years the corruption of government in the sense that all they spend money on is buying votes. There is no infrastructure, there is no development, there is nothing.

"I have to pay a very great tribute to the Rudd Government as for the first time in 20 years I saw a government - the broadband rollout, the national energy grid-there is no votes in either of those things."

"They are a good thing for this country, a great thing for this country and they undertook both those things knowing there were no votes in it for them."

The comments come after Independent MP Tony Windsor said that he had been convinced of the veracity of Labor's broadband plan after he was briefed by Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy secretary Peter Harris and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.