Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Excuse me, Member for Boothby, but we did connect many people and you are obviously in some sort of imaginary place.

Dr Southcott interjecting—

Why then will you not let me table these important articles which talk about the benefits of fibre to the premises? Are you scared of it? Is that the problem?

My residents want me to stand up for the NBN; they want me to stand up to ensure that it goes to the premises. The reason we need fibre to the premises is that the copper in the ground in the southern suburbs of Adelaide is inadequate. There are pair gains and there are RIM issues. Many premises do not have copper in the ground. The Liberal Party's plan to connect NBN to the node will mean that all those on poor copper connections will still not be able to get any faster broadband. They will not be able to get anything better. There is no plan from the Liberal Party—I have heard nothing from them—to say how they are going to deal with the issue of problems with the copper network. Are they going to re-lay more copper? If they re-lay more copper, surely they should just connect people to fibre? Surely the Liberal Party and the coalition government would just connect them to fibre?

This is a sore point for the coalition. They are not listening to the people of Australia and they are not listening to the people of the southern suburbs of Adelaide who want a genuine long-term fix for their internet problems. Unfortunately, I fear that we are going to see broadband plan No. 21 or 22 from the Liberal Party fail. I call on them to— (Time expired)

See this speech in context