Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

the blowhard opposite. We have here an opposition that today showed just how irresponsible it has become. We actually do need the NBN to be globally competitive, to drive productivity and to drive jobs. I want to go through what some of the arguments have been. Firstly, the shadow minister said that we have not identified what the problem is with the existing broadband network. Well, we believe there is a problem. We believe there is a problem when Australia is ranked 50th for broadband speeds. We think there is a problem when not one Australian city makes the top 100 in the world for broadband speeds. We think it is a problem when those in our region are rolling out fibre broadband networks or have done so already—Japan, Singapore and New Zealand—but the coalition simply seek to delay and seek report after report after report.

I welcome the shadow minister’s discovery that the digital divide does have something to do with income, as access to every other service and product does have something to do with income. I welcome the member for Wentworth’s acknowledgement of that. He said the digital divide is about income, not regional Australia. Just last month, in a speech to the CommsDay Congress, he said:

… most Australians live in cities where there is more than enough commercial incentive to provide broadband services.

He is ignoring the reality out there that there is very different access to broadband, depending, for example, on whether you live in my electorate or whether you live in regional Australia, in places like Mt Isa or the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Those opposite show again and again with their comments how out of touch they are. It is little wonder that they remain on the other side of the chamber. I cannot decide which is more out of touch: denying the digital divide or the big economic issue that was raised by the shadow Treasurer this week of the leaf-blowers at Parliament House. That has been the shadow Treasurer’s contribution to the economic debate this week. It has been an absolutely extraordinary performance from him this week.

The shadow minister also raised the issue of the cost-benefit analysis and why it is necessary. He ignored the fact that the McKinsey report, which is over 500 pages, looked at the detailed costings and found that the cost estimates are conservative and looked at the financial revenues and returns and found that a strong, viable business case exists, with NBN repaying taxpayers their investment, with positive returns from year six. He certainly did not look at his own record, where he committed $10 billion of public money to the Water Plan when he was minister. That was done in January—I was shadow minister at the time and I certainly recall it—without going to cabinet or Treasury or the finance department, without getting any advice from anybody. When he was asked about that—because he had no cost-benefit analysis at any time—he said:

Well, it wasn’t subject to a cost-benefit analysis by the Productivity Commission, but there was a lot of analysis done, and we published it at the time and defended it.

They did indeed defend their position, even though they appear to be walking away from many of the comments and commitments that were made in the time in which the member for Wentworth was water minister. He also mentioned the NBN report and quoted selectively from it. The fact is that the OECD report said this:

NBN is a “far-reaching reform project” to “fill the gaps in the broadband internet sector.”

It said:

NBN “will improve internet services for the entire population and promote a fairer competition between private firms on retail services.”

Further:

… calling the dominant operator’s vertical integration into question is also welcome, as it will stimulate competition in the DSL Internet sector, and it can be expected to yield substantial benefits …

On fairness and access and the issue of the market, it said that the NBN:

… will avoid the risk of a geographic digital divide insofar as it will cover the entire population … whereas if it were done by the private sector it would be done more gradually and only to the most densely populated areas.

Further:

… due to Australia’s size and relatively low population density, it would be difficult for more than one competing fixed telecommunications network to exist.

It found that:

… management of the NBN by a public enterprise not involved in commercial activities ensures that private operators accessing the NBN will each get fair treatment on the basis of uniform nationwide pricing.

That is what it found. The NBN is a wholesale network which will provide the backbone of the modern system. You will then have retail competition on top of that, as we are already seeing in Tasmania. Getting rid of the structural separation is therefore particularly important, which is why the legislation before the parliament this week is important.

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