Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Territories, Local Government and Major Projects) Share this | Hansard source

The shadow minister is in a more desperate position week by week, as the rollout inexorably continues and gathers pace. Here he is, trying to pretend it is not succeeding. He is like the black knight of parliament, saying, 'Only a flesh wound,' as the NBN homes passed reach 1.7 million, many multiples of what Labor ever achieved; as the NBN premises pass rate passes 10,000 a week; as the fibre-to-the-node rollout reached 123,000 in December of last year; as NBN revenue for the six months ended 31 December 2015 reached $164 million, more than double the revenue in the previous corresponding period; as HFC trials are conducted in multiple states; as the fixed wireless network reaches 1,265 base stations; as NBN successfully launched its first satellite; as wireless premises covered reach 342,000; as NBN is on track to meet 500,000 fibre-to-the-node premises by 30 June this year and adding 8,000 premises a week; and as the NBN net promoter score, what its customer assess it at, is at plus 31, an extraordinarily positive result. Yet here is the same tired refrain from the shadow minister, 'Oh, it's a failure.' He is like the black knight of the parliament, saying, 'Only a flesh wound,' as another limb gets lopped off.

The facts are inexorably mounting up. We know that there are connections to over 600,000 premises currently under construction and that design work is underway for connections to a further 1.3 million premises. We know that the NBN is on track to expand its footprint by 15,000 premises per week, rising to 25,000 per week by midyear. How does this compare with what Labor was delivering in its distinctly underwhelming tenure during its time in government, when it sought to rollout a broadband network and failed miserably? We know that, when Labor left office, barely 300,000 premises could be connected to the NBN after four and a half years, yet in two and a half years we are at 1.7 million and the rate is rising inexorably every week. Yet, in the face of these undeniable facts, the shadow minister clings to his self-deluded belief that Labor could do better—ignorant and completely denying the dismal reality of what Labor actually did when it was in power.

Let us have a look at some of the advantages of fibre to the node, which the shadow minister has been so critical of. The cost of rolling out this technology is markedly lower than fibre to the premises. It is in line with the corporate plan expectations at around $2,300 per premises—around half the $4,419 per premises that fibre to the premises would cost. Very significantly—despite the breathless rhetoric from the shadow minister—the reality is that customers are just as comfortable with fibre to the node as they are with fibre to the premises. We had a couple of anecdotes from the shadow minister, but where is the data?

Mr Husic interjecting—

He ignored the data even though it has been published by the NBN. Both fibre to the node and fibre to the premises customers report a satisfaction score of 7.7 out of 10. So, when you compare the satisfaction of fibre to the node and fibre to the premises customers, you see the same satisfaction rating of 7.7.

The shadow minister seems incredulous that the CEO of NBN, when presented with instances of customers with concerns, would say, 'I am certain those problems are real.' But let us be clear: one of the overwhelming differences between the coalition's approach to the NBN and Labor's approach to the NBN is that the coalition has always been frank about the difficulties and challenges of rolling out this network. After Labor engaged in six years of treating the NBN as a generator of photo opportunities, when Labor treated the NBN as a provider of political services rather than of broadband services, what you saw under the former Minister for Communications, now Prime Minister, was an insistence on transparency and openness with the Australian people. When the current Prime Minister became the communications minister he insisted that NBN report every week on its website actual numbers of premises passed—the detail on how the rollout was actually performing. This was all part of turning the company around from the dismal performance—the complete lack of operational competence—that we saw under Labor and getting the company on track towards systematically increasing the numbers of premises being connected each week.

Are there instances where customers are not getting the service that they should be? In a network of this scale, of course there are. Is a chief executive officer going to acknowledge those problems? Of course he will, because the whole approach with the NBN, under the coalition, has been to frankly admit that this is an extremely ambitious project, to focus on openness and transparency, and to get capable people onto the board and onto the executive, with globally qualified executives like Bill Morrow leading the company, so that we can steadily, sustainably and consistently improve the operational performance of NBN and get the rollout going where it needs to go.

Let us just remember the chaotic mess that we had under Labor, starting with a sweeping but ill-conceived promise from Messrs Rudd, Conroy, Tanner and Swan in April 2009 that it was going to be a 100 megabit per second network and it was going to cost $43 billion. It was going to be such a great investment that then Prime Minister Rudd said in April 2009 that mums and dads should invest in the bonds issued to fund NBN. If there has been a more negligent piece of financial advice given by a Prime Minister in Australian history, I will be very surprised. We were told at the time that there was going to be substantial private sector investment. Remember that claim from Labor? Of course, about a year later the implementation study conducted by KPMG-McKinsey was slipped out in the dead of night the Sunday before budget in 2010. Guess what it said. It said that the private sector would not touch the NBN with a barge pole, because it was such an ill-conceived project, so all the money had to come from taxpayers. That is Labor's approach to financial management, and that is the mess that we have been charged with cleaning up.

The Prime Minister, in his capacity as communications minister, did a truly remarkable job in turning around what was a mess. We had absolutely incompetent execution by Labor. After 4½ years they had reached slightly over 300,000 premises. What is their suggestion now? This is perhaps the most troubling issue of all. What is it that the shadow minister is seriously suggesting to the Australian people should happen if Labor returns to power? He is claiming that if Labor returns to power the NBN will return to a fibre-to-the-premises approach. How has this suggestion been received—not by political activists but by industry participants? What did the chief executive of M2, one of the major telcos in Australia, have to say about this suggestion from the shadow minister? He said:

I think any further change in deployment model would be ill-advised ... I wouldn't advocate for any change.

That is what the industry said, not politicians. What did TheAustralian Financial Review say about this brilliant idea? TheAustralian Financial Review said:

Labor has no credibility in this area. The NBN as conceived under Rudd Labor turned an important piece of national infrastructure, running to a sensible timetable into a Kevin Rudd vanity project, with no real idea of the costs, that ran to a political schedule. It went from $4.7 billion in 2007, to $42 billion in 2009 to cost at least $56 billion today.

The facts are clear. The coalition government in 2013 inherited a chaotically mismanaged mess from Labor. The current Prime Minister in his time as communications minister did an extraordinary job in turning the company around. There is still a big job ahead, but we are well on track with 1.7 million premises and climbing steadily.

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