The Coalition is prepared to sell out the bush for $1 billion and $100m a year to engineer a Telstra sell-off despite opposition to the sale strengthening across the country, according to Peter Andren, Member for Calare.

"The government is offering the Nationals a one-off spend of $1B then a $100m a year from a $2B trust fund. This is supposed to be for fibre-optic, wireless and satellite links to network country Australia, but they're dreaming," Mr Andren said.

"The coalition must think country voters are pretty dull to swallow this deal when the Nationals estimated the cost of the same job at a minimum of $7B, Sol Trujillo wants a $5B government contribution to do it, and previous Telstra estimates were between $20B and $30B.

"The government has never clearly defined and costed the job of building a state of the art telecommunications network in the bush, sticking to its meaningless 'up-to-scratch' benchmark. There is no way to measure what 'up-to-scratch' is.

"This is why we have so many different and meaningless figures being thrown about now.

"Barnaby Joyce seems tempted to join his Nationals colleagues in rolling over to their Liberal masters, just as Newspoll shows national opposition to the sale firming to 70%. In my own electorate survey that number is 92%.

"This is despite rising satisfaction with the price and quality of services being offered by Telstra, resulting from public pressure brought to bear on the majority owner - the Commonwealth.

"The message is clear - the quality and price of services now is not the issue when it comes to the Telstra sale. It is the future of those services that country people are worried about and the economic insanity of selling such a valuable public asset.

"I am convinced this week's resignation of Telstra Country Wide's western NSW manager suggests a lack of confidence within the organisation in its ability to meet customer expectations in rural areas," Mr Andren said.

"The political debate has been reduced to buying the votes of recalcitrant junior coalition party members but the Nationals stand warned - this is their GST, the issue that cost the Democrats so dearly," he added.