Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband) Share this | Hansard source

while he is trying to talk over the top of me—Mr Quigley's excuse that the Telstra deal held up the rollout of the NBN. While the minister is reflecting on that nonsense, he might have regard to the fact that the definitive agreement signed between NBN and Telstra in June 2011 included, and I quote:

… various interim arrangements to enable NBN Co to obtain immediate access to Telstra infrastructure before the other Definitive Agreements become binding.

The NBN Co. has had access to Telstra's infrastructure pursuant to that agreement for a year now. The excuse that it was all the Telstra deal that caused this shocking failure to meet their targets is just not made out.

But I have one question that this minister may deign to answer, having refused to answer the others. I ask him whether the NBN has targeted geographic locations for its advertising campaign where the NBN will actually be rolled out in stage 1? And if not, why not? I note that recently on page 4 of the Home Hill Observer of 4 April, 2012, there was an advertisement for the NBN which said, 'Stage 1: To see if you are one of the first, visit nbnco.com.au'. I ask the minister, does he think the NBN Co. might have made the job easier for the residents of Home Hill in Queensland, and easier on the taxpayers of Australia, if it either had not advertised in the Home HillObserver, or told them straight up that they will not even be in stage 1 of the rollout? Is it not the fact, minister, that these advertisements have been run willy-nilly across the country to create the misleading impression that the NBN Co. is being rolled out in many areas where it is simply not even on the government's plans intended to be rolled out over the next three years? Work will not even commence in Home Hill in the first stage.

But there is an ad. So of course, in the lead-up to the next election, the residents of Home Hill will read their newspaper and they will assume—unless they actually go onto the website—that the NBN is coming. But it is not. But the NBN is advertising. They are using taxpayers' money to mislead Australians about this incompetently managed project.

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