Govt shuts down request for NBN docs

The coalition has used its numbers to knock back a Senate amendment that would have required the government to hand over financial information about the national broadband network.

The Labor amendment to an uncontroversial bill calling for NBN Co's financial and deployment forecasts out to 2022 passed the Senate with support of the Greens.

But when the bill was returned to the lower house for approval on Thursday, the government said the amendment was inconsistent with the communications legislation to which it was attached.

Government frontbencher Paul Fletcher said NBN Co was required to report in a similar way to publicly listed companies, and provided regular briefings.

"NBN operates in a transparent fashion," he told parliament.

But Labor's communications spokesman Jason Clare said the bill was designed to relieve NBN of releasing "basic, simple" information that it used to release.

"(The government) has doubled the cost of this project," he told parliament.

The only reason the government had been refusing to hand over financial documents was it didn't want to reveal information about the mess of the project, he said.

The bill now heads back to the Senate where the chamber can choose to insist on its amendment.