Both the Labor and Greens parties this afternoon opened fire on the Coalition’s rival broadband policy revealed this morning, in an ICT sector election debate that at times saw Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and his shadow Tony Smith at each others’ throats.

High-profile Liberal MP, Malcolm Turnbull, has slammed Labor’s National Broadband Network Policy in impassioned comments to a Sydney audience, describing it as “a gigantic torching of taxpayers’ money” and claiming most of Australia doesn’t want 100Mbps fibre internet.

The election date is set. It’s pistols at dawn on August 21 as voters decide on who they want in the next Federal Government. The spotlight will inevitably be on the new Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and her arch nemesis, Liberal Party leader, Tony Abbott.