House debates Bills

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016; Consideration in Detail

Thursday, 4 June 2015 House of Representatives

Malcolm Turnbull

Malcolm Turnbull Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications

12:15 pm

It is fine for the honourable member to question me, but she really has to listen to the answer, and this is the answer: the NBN Co has made an enormous provision for remediation of the copper infrastructure. Yes, there will be bridge taps. Yes, there will be bad joints. Any linear network, whether it is made out of copper or glass, is always going to have remediation issues. But the fact is that the NBN Co has made a very substantial provision—a very conservative provision—to remediate any of those breaches in the copper network. So, in summary, pair gain systems are a major part of the problem in the honourable member's electorate and the areas she describes, and they are transformed by FTTN. It is as though that technology was made to solve that problem.

As far as run-of-the-mill deterioration in linear infrastructure is concerned, of course it will be remediated and made good. It is enormous, but there is very conservative and more than adequate provision made to remediate it.

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