Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

Very good, member for Riverina—what do they had to hide? They fear scrutiny, and they fear the fact that the writing is on the wall.

Young consumers today do not want to be plugged into the wall. Young consumers want the flexibility that wireless offers. That is shown in markets around the world, where we see declines in fixed line telephony and declines in the plug-in mentality in favour of getting the internet where you are and when you are. There is the use of mobile devices. We see a massive shift. Any corporate director of operations would be looking at the markets carefully. He would be examining the trend. He would be trying to anticipate what consumers want. But here we have a government that says: ‘I know what’s good for you. I know what the future holds here. We’re going to cause you all to have to plug into the wall.’ Of course there is a use for fibre. It is a very effective medium, but it is just one of a suite of technologies that can deliver the appropriate outcomes for the Australian people.

There is no need to dig up every single backyard in Australia to deliver high-speed broadband. There is no need to spend $50 billion. Rather we should be focusing on fixing up broadband black spots, particularly in regional and rural areas. We should be focusing on the ways in which we can address the shortcomings of the current system. Why is it logical to provide a 100-megabit service throughout Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to those properties that are already passed by the HFC network, which can deliver 100 megabits a second through DOCSIS 3 already? Why is it a good use of taxpayers’ money to just ignore that existing technology? Why is it a good government policy to legislate to prevent competition from that alternative medium that could probably provide broadband at a far cheaper cost and could be achieved without having to dig up every backyard in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane? It is absolutely outrageous, yet this government continues, protected by that veil of secrecy that is the only thing between them and total embarrassment—that veil of secrecy that is protecting this project from the scrutiny that this project rightly deserves. It is protecting this government.

We have seen in New South Wales a government in place for 16 years, and they ran on a formula of spin. You see the New South Wales people’s reaction. In the long term they are seeing through the spin. Unfortunately, this government is using the same hymn book. They are adopting exactly the same strategies, and they will fall foul of the Australian people because this project does not stack up. This project is buttressed by anticompetitive measures. We have a Competition and Consumer Act 2010 that sees the need for competition as a major way of driving down costs to provide efficient outcomes to consumers. But when we have this project—the largest infrastructure project in Australia—what do they do? They legislate against competition. They legislate against a driver of cheaper prices and better outcomes for consumers. They legislate to buttress their own political position, which is tenuous indeed. It is $50 billion—the largest infrastructure project in the country—and they need to protect it. They cannot champion its virtues; they have to hide it from scrutiny.

We have seen endless promises from this government broken. We have seen endless cases of waste and mismanagement, and this is going to be the greatest case of all. We are going to see not just a few stray billion dollars wasted; we are going to see $50 billion wasted and a huge capital loss that will have to be borne by the taxpayer. We are going to see countless opportunities squandered for alternative infrastructure projects because money is being poured down Senator Conroy’s budgetary black hole. We see in Tasmania that they have had to force people to opt out. With all of the promotion and all of the fanfare over the National Broadband Network, subscriptions were so low they had to encourage people by forcing them into the project. What sort of vendor has to force people to buy their project? The minister responsible is the man who put the con into Conroy. This project is falling apart around him like a leper on a trampoline. It is an absolute disgrace that they are wasting $50 billion of taxpayers’ money. Anybody who believes they are going to achieve an IRR of seven per cent is living in a fool’s paradise. The government knows it. They have to protect the project from scrutiny because they know that when the facts are on the table this project just does not stack up.

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