Communications Minister Amy Adams says Vodafone's attack on her proposals for broadband pricing is in direct conflict with its private lobbying a few months ago.



In a submission on Adams' discussion document on the Telecommunication Act, Vodafone accused the Government of placing a "copper tax on consumers by stealth".



The document outlined proposals on what Chorus can charge broadband retailers to access its old copper-based broadband network while it is building the new fibre network, and could overrule any recommendation of the Commerce Commission.



Vodafone attacked the plans, calling it an "ill-conceived intervention". It said charging consumers more to make another service more attractive was "bad policy".



However, documents released under the Official Information Act show Vodafone was part of a broad-range group of internet companies which lobbied Adams on the issue.



Vodafone, Telecom and four other telecommunications companies said they accepted that the move from copper to fibre "can be affected by copper pricing".



The companies suggested that the entry level price for access should be $37.50 a month, in line with the basic fibre broadband price, a figure which Adams proposed in her discussion document.



She said there were a number of "direct areas of apparent conflict" between Vodafone's public submission and the proposals it put forward in May.



"I was certainly surprised to read the tenor of their comments, given what they had said to me in this letter in private," Adams said, adding that views of the telecoms companies were "obviously formative" in her thinking on the discussion document.



Vodafone denied it was contradicting its private position.



Director of external affairs Tom Chignell said Adams appeared to be "forgetting" that the letter expressed that the fundamental driver to fibre broadband would be speed.



The entry level products being offered were too slow and needed to be faster in order to differentiate fibre from copper-based broadband.



Once Adams overlooked that element, then the attempt to avoid a drawn-out legal battle was doomed.



"When you're involved in a negotiation and the other party takes the thing they want but rejects the thing you want, it doesn't feel like a negotiation," Chignell said.



Vodafone had held a number of direct meetings with Adams and she should not have been surprised by its views, he said.



Adams' office noted that since May a number of the companies building the fibre network had announced faster offers, some similar to those suggested by the broadband retailers, for only a few dollars more than the basic price.