Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I represent one of the fastest growing residential areas of New South Wales, and some of those growth suburbs include areas such as the Ponds, Kellyville Ridge and Stanhope Gardens. I can say without any shadow of a doubt that the issue in these areas about which I receive more complaints and inquiries every single day than about anything else is broadband accessibility. These are areas where absolutely no investment has taken place in these new suburbs up until now. I have people ringing me up and saying: 'In this day and age, I am amazed that I am unable to get ADSL2+ to my home. I have a small business at home. I am absolutely unable to run it effectively because I cannot get adequate broadband accessibility.'

Minister, as you are aware, Riverstone is the site of the first Sydney metro rollout, which means that it is important for these new areas in the north-west, which have not only growing residential areas but also a huge amount of employment lands being released. These are industrial areas of Riverstone and Schofields which are being opened up to more innovative technology and are looking for affordability, accessibility and also the wide variety of applications and services which will be provided from access to the highest quality broadband, which they have not had until now.

In asking this question of the minister, I would also like to say that this is not just a poverty barrier and, if it were, I would question what the opposition did when they were in government to address that barrier. We have had whole areas of Western Sydney which had no investment in infrastructure. If you look at the maps of Mount Druitt, you see that they are areas which have been totally neglected for over a decade. These are areas which are crying out for transformational change. They had no input over the 12 years that those opposite were in government, and even today those opposite have the hide to stand up here and say that it is a poverty issue. It is not just a poverty issue. I would ask the minister whether he agrees that it is an issue of simply not having investment in these new suburbs and having no incentives to invest. There has been absolutely no incentive to invest. Even today we query whether or not there is going to be any investment in those areas without the NBN because the NBN is the investment in these new suburbs. I would say to the member for Wentworth: I do not get asked by these people why we are having the NBN. The only question I get asked is when, and it cannot come soon enough for these people.

I attended on Saturday night a house meeting in the suburb of Kings Langley of a group of residents who were concerned about their inability to obtain even ADSL2+. One of the residents called a street meeting and opened his house up to people. This is an area of Kings Langley which, as the member for Parramatta will know having once represented this area, is a pretty well developed suburb. But this particular subdivision was actually developed after the cable wars so does not have any cable running through it. These are people who have satellite dishes on their roofs and they are rightly asking, 'Why in this day and age are we unable to access the highest-quality affordable broadband services?' It is a legitimate question. So I went along to this meeting and heard the concerns of those 20 residents who were there, each of them not saying, 'Why are we getting it?', they are saying, 'When are we getting it?' For these people, it cannot come soon enough.

I will also mention in asking my question to the minister: we know that internet access is one of the applications and services that will be provided from high-speed broadband that can only be delivered through the NBN. I would like to ask the minister in terms of both the affordability of that internet access and the economic benefits, what will the NBN deliver for residents, such as those in Greenway, who are waiting to get high-speed affordable broadband services?

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