Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

This motion unwittingly reveals one of the few qualities of the Abbott government. I know that after their first, chaotic budget not too many people are talking up the qualities of the government. Watching them sell what has been described as a stinking carcass of a budget—high praise from their side—it is painfully obvious that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are struggling in talking up themselves and their own qualities. Considering this, I thought I would lend them a hand, using the motion of the member for Gilmore.

You see, this motion champions one of the greatest hidden attributes of the government, which is its sense of irony. Look hard and you will find that that quality is on display in everything that the government does. That quality has been on show from their first swearing-in right through to her first budget. If members are having trouble identifying it, check out the responsibilities they have set up for their ministers. A Prime Minister who shaped a ministry with the lowest level of female representation in living memory is the minister for women. They have an industry minister who oversees the closure of industries; a health minister whose biggest job right now is to discourage the sick from seeing a doctor; a social services minister who is cutting the incomes of young employed people, making sure they have less money for things such as food and rent but making sure they have a couple of hundred dollars for marriage counselling; and an infrastructure minister who has distanced himself from any infrastructure project that does not involve building a road—he should just rebadge himself the Minister for Tar; he is helped by the member for Mayo, the Assistant Minister for Tar. But the greatest, the finest, blaring example of irony, is the Minister for Communications, who is tasked with the slow death of one of the biggest communications projects in the country, the NBN, and he is ably supported by backbenchers who run interference, creating confusion and dismay about a project that will actually benefit their own electorates.

This motion was moved by a regional member of parliament, the member for Gilmore, backed up by three regional members of parliament arguing against improving the quality of infrastructure in their own patch. What are we going to see next, a conservative government argue for lifting the taxes on the well off? No, they have done that one, too!

We have here the government turning the NBN into what has been described as a CBN—a copper broadband network. They are not doing anything inventive. All they are doing is reverting to type—the type that has dogged them since the last time they were in government, when they had 20 failed broadband plans—tinkering with copper when fibre is what will be required to get the job done and done right. Instead of 93 per cent of homes being connected with fibre the coalition will only connect 26 per cent this way. That is what these regional members are applauding today. Instead of ensuring complete coverage by satellite and wireless in those hard-to-reach areas, these members are chanting for an $80 million mobile-phone-tower program where data costs will be higher and speeds will be slower. They are presiding over a plan described by veteran analysts, such as Paul Budde, as a dog's breakfast. It is so bad that the promises they made at the election have already been dropped—for example, that of 25 megabits per second by 2016.

So what is the member for Gilmore talking about when she talks about the NBN? Her motion is not about the network itself; she focused on reviews. Since the government has come to office they have not been rolling out fibre, they have been rolling out red carpet to consultants. I have seen the minister out and about wearing a fluoro vest. I do not know why. He is not building a network; he is building a Brandisesque library of consultant reviews and reports.

If they are not rolling around in glee making snow angels out of the invoices that the consultants have sent them, they are working hard to suppress different views on the NBN. I have been surprised to see, for instance, reports that the ABC are withholding reports about the NBN because they do not want to upset their new masters, and they are failing to report on the National Broadband Network.

Have no doubt about it: people want fibre to the premises. The do not want the coalition's CBN; they want the NBN. I know this from my own area, where I have often raised the concerns of local residents in Woodcroft and Doonside. Fortunately, and to their credit, in April the government reversed a terrible decision they made in December where they dropped these suburbs from the rollout. But, while one half will get the NBN, the other half will not. There are patches of these suburbs that are bizarrely omitted.

The shadow minister for communications attended a forum I held earlier this month where residents expressed a clear view they wanted the job done properly. In words that I think signal a firm view across modern Australia, he was told: 'This is Australia, not a Third World country. There are other countries worse than us that have better broadband service. If I have a right to vote, I should have a right to better broadband.' That is the expectation of modern Australia, not what these people are delivering. (Time expired)

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