Russell Matheson (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start by thanking the member for Robertson, Lucy Wicks, for this excellent motion on the NBN rollout. The NBN has been a hot topic in my electorate of Macarthur this year and I have spoken on numerous occasions in this House about how quickly and extensively the NBN has been rolled out in my electorate—thanks to the tremendous support of the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull in his previous role as Minister for Communications.

A few months ago I proudly announced that preconstruction activities had commenced on 20,900 homes in Airds, Bradbury, Ambarvale, Rosemeadow, St Helens Park, Campbelltown, Englorie Park, Glen Alpine, Blair Athol, Eagle Vale, Woodbine and Kentlyn—a monumental achievement considering Labor did zero for Macarthur in the six years they were in power. Macarthur's NBN rollout has rightly been recognised by people on opposite sides of Sydney as a benchmark for the state. Tim Doubleday, for instance—a resident of Collaroy on Sydney's northern beaches—wrote to the Manly Daily in July this year to express his amazement. He wrote:

Macarthur federal Liberal MP Russell Matheson has secured a deal to see the national broadband network rolled out in 20,100 homes in his electorate up to three years ahead of its proposed schedule.

Of course Macarthur is no exception, with work underway or to be completed in areas covering 85 per cent of premises in NSW in the next three years.

In August, NBN Co released its corporate plan. It showed that the multitechnology mix initiated by the government after the last election is the most cost- and time-effective means of completing the NBN. The government's NBN strategy will deliver upgrades up to eight years sooner and at a cost around $30 billion lower than Labor's reckless all-fibre-to-the-premises alternative. The government's NBN is designed to provide a minimum 25 megabits per second to all homes and businesses and at least 50 megabits per second to 90 per cent of the premises in the fixed-line footprint. To put this in perspective, 25 megabits per second would allow each of five people on the same connection to watch—simultaneously—a different high-definition video stream.

The NBN rollout in Macarthur will provide an incredible boost to industry and to small- and medium-sized enterprises, not to mention to the thousands of family run businesses and start-ups. It will also transform the lives of the students and families living in Macarthur who have been crying out for faster internet—but who were ignored by Labor when in office. Amazingly, Labor and the unions appear to have targeted Macarthur in a bid to undermine, and mislead the public about, the NBN rollout. The only justification for this is that they are scared witless of the fact that this government is delivering in two years what they could not deliver in six.

According to a flyer that Labor was distributing, 'Macarthur needs fibre to the premises'. If Labor had bothered to do their research, they would know that half the premises in Macarthur can only get download speeds of nine megabits per second or less and that roughly 10,000 premises, or 17 per cent, are located in areas where the estimated median ADSL download speed is less than 4.8 megabits per second. The quality of Macarthur's internet is nearly twice as poor as the national average—a damning indictment. Does anyone in their right mind genuinely believe that these people are happy to remain with their current inadequate internet speeds for another decade while Labor wastes millions of dollars in taxpayer funds?

Another line favoured by Labor is that, by ditching their discredited NBN model, households in Macarthur will have superfast broadband speeds to the street corner—but that the service will crawl to old speeds when it gets to the 100 year-old copper network at their home. I contacted nbn co about this claim as it is something often bandied about in the media by Labor. Here is what they said:

Nbn co is now implementing a multitechnology model which involves using existing infrastructure where it makes sense to do so. The government has asked nbn co to use this approach to provide a minimum 25 megabits per second to all homes and businesses and at least 50 megabits per second to 90 per cent of the premises in the fixed-line footprint. Fibre to the node is one of the fixed-line technologies we will be deploying. Fibre is run from the exchange to a node in the street. It then uses the existing copper lines into people's homes to provide very fast broadband.

Here is the important part:

If copper is not capable of delivering adequate services to end users then nbn is committed to remediation works to bring it to the required standard.

The required standard, of course, is 25 megabits per second, which is 150 per cent faster than half my electorate currently gets. So not only am I surprised that Labor chose to fight the government on the NBN, considering their embarrassing record, but I actually encourage them, as it is something the government has a lot to say about and it is something we are incredibly proud of.

I had a chuckle recently when I looked at Labor's NBN flyer, which has a black and white photo of a group of workmen installing copper in the 1960s. The photo, of course, is meant to suggest that the government's NBN model is antiquated and out of date; yet a few weeks ago we launched Sky Muster, which is one of the highest capacity internet-providing satellites ever built. So, while we are launching this type of technology into orbit, vastly improving internet speeds in isolated and remote areas and rolling out the NBN years faster and billions of dollars cheaper, no doubt Labor will continue to deflect and deceive—but the electorate, no doubt, will know which side is playing with a straight bat and delivering for the community.

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