The Coalition has confirmed that it would attempt to extend on some provisions of the amendments being sought by South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon for the national broadband network once the Parliament resumes for a special session on Monday.

The independent senator wants to ensure that the NBN project would still undergo a careful supervision prior to its final Senate approval on February 2011 and the Coalition is endeavouring to attach at least a crucial line on the amendments pushed by Senator Xenophon, which seeks for a cost-benefit analysis of the $37.5 billion NBN project by the Productivity Commission.

Since the NBN legislation has technically gathered the necessary votes to hurdle approval of both chambers of the Parliament, the opposition is rushing to add the modifications on the proposed amendments, keenly aware that such initiative would not be permitted by next year as parliamentary rules only allow amendments on approved legislations that are deemed to be sufficiently relevant or of enough consequences.

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said on Monday that a scheduled meeting of Coalition leaders would be held prior to the Parliament's sitting this afternoon, mainly to determine the precise wording of the amendment extensions

While acknowledging that the special session of the Parliament scheduled for today was due to the opposition's efforts of dragging the NBN debate, costing Australian taxpayers some $600,000, Mr Turnbull maintained that the Coalition could not throw its support on the NBN project without the assurance that it would be subjected to a cost-benefit analysis.

On his part, Senator Xenophon clarified that his support on the legislation that paved the way for the structural division of Telstra's retail and wholesale operations was not an assurance that he would also vote for the NBN project.

He said that he voted for the partitioning of Telstra Corporation since it would encourage more competition in the telecommunications industry yet the present form of the NBN project is unacceptable as "there is scope within its legislation that could see larger telcos being granted cheaper access than smaller players."

Senator Xenophon stressed that planned NBN legislations which foster glaring advantages for some companies would lead to a discouraging environment for competition and hurt telco consumers in the long run as he reaffirmed that such measures would not win his backing.