David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

(1)      notes that the National Broadband Network project was badly mismanaged by the previous government, and has:

(a)   caused a substantial amount of taxpayer funds to be wasted; and

(b)   led to a minute proportion of Australians actually being connected to the network; and

(2)      recognises the plans of the Government to change the strategy of NBN Co. Limited, delivering a high quality service in substantially less time and at substantially less cost than would have occurred under Labor; and

(3)      commends the Government on its approach to this important infrastructure project.

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak on the National Broadband Network. Rarely in our history has there been so sorry an example of public administration as the administration of the NBN under the previous government and rarely has there been such a clear contrast between the two approaches.

To start the NBN story we have to go back to 2007 when Kevin Rudd said that the then opposition would contribute $4.7 billion to what then was only going to be a $10 billion network. They then had a few chats with people in industry and decided that that was all a bit complicated. The then communications minister, Senator Conroy, in a couple of fleeting airborne meetings with the then Prime Minister, said, 'That idea we had before the election is not going to work, unfortunately, because the numbers do not stack up even remotely.' The then Prime Minister emerged in April 2009, mustering all the gravitas that he could, and said, 'With the private sector in retreat the government will step up and build the NBN at a cost of $43 billion.' He said the private sector would contribute up to 49 per cent of that cost.

Of course, that did not happen because this was such a flawed project from the outset. So much so that the independent report that the government commissioned late last year found that the cost to build the NBN would be about $73 billion. You have to pause for a moment and think about that. There are about nine million households in Australia, so $73 billion works out to be about $8,000 per household in Australia. Further, the report found that the average cost to the average home under that plan would be about $138 per month. You might recall Labor saying prior to the election that under Labor high-speed broadband would be free. Of course this is manifestly false because it failed to identify the fact that each household was effectively contributing about $8,000 in taxes to build it and then would be required to pay more than $100 per month in order to access it.

There were supposed to be half a million homes connected by June 2013. There are actually 23,000. The cost of the network prior to the election was $6.5 billion, reaching only three per cent of homes. That is a very bad investment. What that failure means is that people continue to struggle to get high-speed broadband in this country. Small businesses in Padstow in my electorate still struggle to get high-speed broadband, as indeed do many residents in Lugano. So for all the bluff and bluster, and the extraordinary commitment of public funds on a whim and the back of a napkin, the practical results are very poor.

We are going to focus on practical results. We are going to use technology in a multifaceted way. If technology is working effectively or it can be used, rather than ripping it up as the previous government was going to do, we will make use of that asset to build the NBN in a strategic way. We will save $29 billion, an extraordinary amount of money, and we will build it four years quicker than the previous government would have done. Any claims from those opposite in relation to the NBN have extremely limited credibility. When you take into account the extra cost blow-outs in the network and the fact that three per cent of homes were covered for $6.5 billion, it is an extraordinary use of public money. Interestingly, since the government of the day completed its deal with Telstra in relation to the NBN in 2011, the share price of Telstra has increased in a fairly dramatic fashion, which may suggest that the government did not negotiate the most sophisticated of deals with Telstra. That is another indictment of the extreme failure of public policy. This government's plan is on the right track and will get the NBN that Australia needs faster and more cheaply.

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