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

Firstly, I congratulate the honourable member for his chairmanship of the committee. But I want to draw the attention of the House to the dissenting report by the coalition members and senators. There are some very real concerns with the way in which this project is being undertaken. As I think honourable members understand, the coalition is thoroughly committed to completing the National Broadband Network. We are thoroughly committed to all Australians having access to very fast broadband. Those points are not in contention. The issues are, relevantly, how much this is going to cost and how long it is going to take. On the issue of cost, it is obvious that the Commonwealth is spending more money than is absolutely necessary and it clearly is a matter of the more you spend on it the less affordable it becomes. And, of course, the longer it takes the longer people who do have inadequate broadband are going to have to endure that situation. We have suggested a different approach that we are quite satisfied will ensure the broadband network is completed sooner, cheaper and, consequently, more affordably.

We have a remarkable lack of transparency on the cost of the NBN's construction. The NBN Co. will not tell the committee what it is costing them to pass or connect each premise. As we have set out in this report, they have hinted at costs but they do not even include the cost of getting the fibre into the premise, which, as everybody in the industry knows, is actually the single largest part of the civil works. That is why so many telco firms terminate the fibre at the kerb or in the basement of an apartment building or on a street corner. What is most remarkable about this is that here you have the NBN Co., which is a government owned business that is being set up as a monopoly, so it does not have to worry about competitors, and is wholly owned by the taxpayers of Australia, and it will not provide basic information that telcos in other markets do. Chorus, which is the structurally separated customer access network company that was formerly part of Telecom New Zealand, discloses precisely what its cost is to pass each premise and to connect each premise. You have to ask yourself why NBN Co. is not producing those figures. I think the reason is pretty clear: they are not prepared to own up to the huge and growing cost of this rollout.

I have talked about the cost here, but the speed of the rollout is a matter that we have also expressed great concern about. In 2010 the NBN Co's business plan said that they will have passed 1.3 million premises by 30 June 2013. In August last year they reduced that down to a figure somewhat in excess of 300,000. Now, it is 286,000, and we understand they will shortly be announcing that they have not been able to meet that target either. At that rate it could take in excess of 20 years to complete this network. So what does that mean for somebody who has lousy broadband? At least two million premises in Australia do not have sufficiently fast broadband to be able to watch a YouTube video. So, yes, there is a real need to address it, but it has to be done in a speedy and cost-effective way. If the government had had an ounce of rational responsibility and an ounce of business sense before embarking on this project it would have done a thorough cost-benefit analysis, but I have spoken to the House about that before.

We have made a number of recommendations in our dissenting report, which are all directed at the NBN Co. providing the committee, and through that committees the people of Australia, with the information we and the Australian people need to actually assess whether this project is delivering value for money and whether it is delivering an outcome, product or infrastructure in a timely way. At the moment, all of our predictions that this project would cost far too much and take far too long I am afraid are being borne out by experience. It is not good enough to have a wholly owned government business with a financial disclosure culture that would do the Kremlin proud. This should be the most transparent, the most accountable telecoms company in Australia, but you can find out more information about any of the listed telecoms companies in Australia, from Telstra down, than you can about this one. It is being treated as though it is some sort of secret agency in a black box.

The only conclusion we can come to is that they are not prepared to face up to the fact that this infrastructure project is failing. It is failing to deliver the job. It is failing to connect households. Nineteen months after starting construction in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, the NBN Co. through its contractor Syntheo is not in a position to connect one premise—zero. This is not a failure; this is a total failure—a complete and utter failure. It is not often that people fail to this extent. That is the nature of the problems this project is facing. It is about time that they fessed up, opened the books and allowed the people and its representatives in this place to thoroughly assess them. I strongly recommend to the House the report and, in particular, the dissenting report by the coalition members and senators.

See this speech in context