Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

He is using a word that denotes something extremely harmful either in a physical or financial sense. Financial ruin would occur as a result of the failure, in their words, to meet the targets. It is an absurd claim. They well know that the 2011-13 corporate plan was produced well before any definitive agreements had been signed up, before one of the biggest corporate agreements was signed with Telstra and before the Optus deal was even finalised, to ensure the handover of their network and their agreement in terms of the way in which NBN Co rolls out the network. They know that no-one in this country could have predicted that the ACCC would have brought down a points-of-interconnect decision that would see the points of interconnection increase by a multitude, from 14 to 121. Those opposite had never predicted it. It suits their political argument to say that it does not meet the target, while neglecting to mention the things that have happened in between. Any company will have to, from time to time, confront roadblocks and work out how they structure their corporate plans accordingly. Those opposite are unable to have the decency to tell the Australian public why these figures had changed.

There is no doubt that this project, as it picks up speed, will roll out further and further, and will not necessarily be held up by the type of scare campaigns that have been put by those opposite. We had the member for Wentworth, for example, picking up on this issue of asbestos. No-one doubts for one moment that the issue is one that is critical and needs to be managed properly. Asbestos has sat in the Telstra system for decades, and then the member for Wentworth says in an offhand remark that this has been known for some time by NBN and Telstra. Yes, it has been known by Telstra. I would be interested to go back to the initial prospectus that was put out as it was being privatised to see whether or not it was denoted as a risk. What did those opposite do, when they were in government for 13 years, about the issue of asbestos? In any due diligence process you would know that it is an issue and you would have to deal with it. I would be interested to know now what the opposition, in government, did to mitigate risk.

The fact of the matter is that there are very smart people in Telstra, who, while they will not be able to pinpoint right now where these things are on a network map, will be able to determine this, based on likely roll-out. They will be able to deal with it where the roll-outs occur, at any point in time, and they do. For example, in Kiama, where Silcar was used on the project, they had trained up all their staff and ensured that all the equipment was present and did not have one problem with the issue of asbestos. Asbestos is being used as a Trojan Horse by those opposite. I am not having them now confect a concern about asbestos when I, like many other people, heard the dismissive words expressed by the Leader of the Opposition to Bernie Banton. It was one of the most disgraceful episodes I have witnessed and it is beneath the Leader of the Opposition. If he has found a concern about asbestos I welcome it, but he should remember that his previous words haunt him in this regard.

The other thing I want to mention is workforce planning. There has been a great deal of reference made in the report to workforce planning and subcontractor planning. It has been one issue that I have been particularly interested in from the get-go. Before my life here as a member of parliament, it was something that I represented as the national president of a union that covers workers in this area. We have enormous talent that exists out there that we need to employ and deploy on this project. One of the concerns that I have is that Telstra should be used more and more in the rollout of this project, because they do have people within Telstra, in the lines and in the field workforce, who can be used.

One of the regrets I have is that NBN Co. has been stuck in a model that has been used and employed for many years in the sector, which is a contract-subcontract model. I doubt very much those opposite will move away from it. My issue with it is that NBN Co. does not have an internal workforce, and that internal workforce could easily be supplied by Telstra. You will not necessarily need an asset manager into the future with fibre. Fibre obviously costs a lot to deploy but costs very little to maintain into the future. There are people within Telstra and we should be forming a relationship with Telstra so they can be used more and more on the rollout of this project. This will ensure that the skills that are there within the sector can be employed to their best possible ability. It will also ensure that Telstra can aid NBN Co. in what is critical for them: network mapping, being able to determine the structure of the network and having robust systems into the future. I welcome this committee and all the work that it has done. It has done a great job for this parliament. In particular I note the contribution of the chairperson. (Time expired)

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