Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is astonishing that members opposite would wish to draw attention to the shambles that is the coalition's policy on the National Broadband Network. On the critical issues of cost, timing and speed, the coalition fails on all three fronts. I will illustrate this by looking at the situation in my own electorate of Newcastle.

Stockton is at the northern end of my electorate. It is an idyllic seaside suburb with a tight-knit community that is just a few hundred metres as the crow flies from the centre of Newcastle. In May 2013, Stockton was added to the National Broadband Network rollout map. Residents who had long suffered from poor ADSL broadband access and quality were finally due to receive Labor's superfast fibre-to-the-premises NBN by 2016. To describe Stockton as having poor broadband access and quality is indeed a generous description of the current situation. For some residents, there was no access at all, and those who do have access have some of the slowest upload and download speeds in Australia. News of the NBN hook-up was most welcome. Frustrating drop-outs and video buffering would be replaced by 21st century, reliable, superfast, high-quality broadband right to their doorsteps. Stockton joined the rest of the Newcastle electorate on Labor's NBN rollout map, ensuring that every home and every business would have access by 2016.

But then the Abbott Liberal government was elected. The hopes of Stockton residents were dashed. Like the rest of my electorate, they were wiped off the rollout map altogether. We went from 100 per cent coverage for rollout by 2016 to zero. The Abbott Liberal government had hoped to placate Novocastrians with promises of services delivering a minimum of 25 megabits per second. While it was not the best service possible, it was at least an improvement on the existing ADSL coverage. But, as I believe all sides of this chamber know, that was nothing but a hollow commitment from a hollow government. Not long after being elected, even that promise was broken.

Fast forward to today: following a strong community campaign, Stockton is finally back on the NBN rollout map, with work due to commence in the second half of 2016. That is right—the work is due to commence at the end of 2016, at the very same time as residents under Labor's plan were actually expecting to be connected. It is quite astounding that the motion before us talks of an improved state of the NBN under this government. Any independent analysis makes clear that the coalition's NBN fails the Australian people on almost every front. Contrary to the three-word slogans prior to the election, where the coalition members argued that their NBN version would be faster, more affordable and rolled out sooner, we know from lived experience that they have failed on all counts.

Let's just take a look at the facts. On the issue of costs: before being elected the coalition promised their NBN was going to cost about $29.5 billion to build. In reality, we see something far different. The NBN corporate plan, released last month, confirmed that the costs of Malcolm Turnbull's inferior NBN had nearly doubled to $56 billion—so much for offering a more affordable NBN. On the issue of timing: before being elected, the government promised the NBN would be rolled out to all homes and businesses within three years—that is, by the end of 2016. But we know that is not going to be true either. And Malcolm Turnbull was alleged to be the best person to make sure this happened.

On the issue of speed, how does the coalition's NBN stack up? Australia is falling well behind our international peers and is failing to meet the needs of today, let alone those of the future. In 2009 Australia's average broadband download speed was ranked as 39th in the world. Since then our international reckoning has slipped to 59th place and the government's multi-technology mix could see our ranking fall to as low as 100th by 2020. Notwithstanding all these issues with the coalition's inferior broadband, it is the lack of vision and future proofing of the Minister for Communications that I find most astounding. His complete inability to understand the imperative to deliver 21st century technology to the Australian people—to every home and to every business—is worrying, to say the least. The digital divide that is being created across the country, within electorates and even within suburbs, is leading to greater inequality in Australia. Malcolm Turnbull is clearly too busy keeping an eye on getting the top job in this country to worry about his own portfolio responsibilities.

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