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

I welcome the opportunity to debate and note this report. The purpose of the report is to provide advice to parliament on the largest infrastructure project in the nation's history. This committee has the responsibility of providing reporting in a timely manner. This committee has the responsibility to keep the parliament and the Australian people properly informed of the status of the project. The committee has the responsibility to highlight deficiencies identified in the rollout of the project. Regrettably, this report rambles on, page after page, and says absolutely nothing. It gives the reader no insight into the progress of the project. It is a document that does nothing other than repeat and bring together material already in the public domain. This is a project that is behind time and over budget and that is not achieving the take-up rates projected in its own business plan. It is a significant failing that in the first report the committee has not addressed the issues of time, cost and take-up rates—the very foundation stones of the success or failure of the National Broadband Network project. The report does not even inform the parliament of the expenditure to date on the project and where those funds have been spent. At the earliest meetings of the committee certain key performance indicators were requested. It is now 22 September and NBN Co. and the government have failed to deliver on their undertaking to provide KPIs to the committee's meeting of 20 September.

I quote the words from the report:

At the committee's 16 May 2011 public hearing, NBN Co stated that it was reviewing 'a number of KPIs with the NBN Co Board.'

I quote from the report again:

Later at the committee's 5 July 2011 public hearing, the NBN Co indicated that it had been working closely with the Government to develop KPIs. The NBN Co stated that once this process was complete, that the Government would consult with the committee …

It is now 22 September and we are still to receive the promised information. That is timely, responsive reporting of the ilk that Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud of. It is the largest infrastructure project in history, and the government and NBN Co. can spend six months deciding what the KPIs might be. It is little wonder that this is a project running behind time. It is reasonable to assume that the reason the key performance indicators have not been provided is that this is a project that is failing.

On 1 April this year we had the construction tender process collapse and be abandoned. Tenders were massively over budget. We had 14 tenderers, all notable industry players, who came up with a set of numbers vastly different from the project budget. And what can we conclude here? Was there collusion between the 14 tenderers? There was no ACCC investigation and apparently no evidence of that. Was the budget inadequate? The government claims the budget is totally adequate, but I am yet to be convinced We have a tender process which was abandoned and a government claiming that the project is still within budget, yet we have not a word on this in this waffling report.

And then along comes Silcar and everything is fixed; magically, a deal is done within budget. I thought Christmas only came once a year, but there we had a tender process collapsing and, miraculously, out of the blue on the white horse came Silcar. We have a joint venture between Siemens and Thiess which can allegedly deliver the project within budget. I say 'allegedly' because we just do not know and there is nothing in this report that makes us any more confident. We do not know anything about this contract that has been let to Silcar. In the true spirit of the NBN, there is a veil of secrecy and concealment. We do not know the risks that NBN Co. have taken on to achieve this somewhat miraculous change in the value of the construction tender. We do not know who is taking the risk in changes in the cost of labour. We do not know who is taking the risks on the increases in the cost of materials and equipment. We do not know who is taking the risk with regard to extension of time, industrial disputes, bad weather or site conditions. We just do not know, and this report is silent on this very important issue.

Wouldn't you think that, if you have the largest infrastructure project in this nation's history and you have a major collapse in the construction tender process, it would warrant a few lines of consideration? Wouldn't you think that a committee that has the responsibility of reporting on the status to the parliament would at least raise it and deliberate on that? But no: the report is silent on that issue. The fact is the headline price arrived at with Silcar may be nothing more than a carefully contrived illusion designed to get an incompetent government out of a mess of its own making. The reality is the real cost of this contract may be far greater when all of the risks are finally monetised—a very important point. And did the report properly consider this important issue? Alas, as I said, it did not. Let me look at take-up rates—a vitally important issue and a key foundation stone for the revenue projections in the business plan. It is interesting to note that it would be reasonable to expect that a project with the qualities espoused by the government—the NBN that the country cannot be without—and with all the publicity there would be a stampede to get connected, that people would be knocking Senator Conroy over in the rush to get connected to the NBN. When the Apple iPhone was released, people queued in the snow to buy one. They were so keen to get this new technology, they queued in the snow to buy one. Yet Senator Conroy is struggling to find a queue of people who want get connected to the NBN. He cannot even find a queue.

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