Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

With the member for Blaxland coming in here in a nice conservative blue tie and me wearing a red tie, I had hoped we might be on a reverse unity ticket! But five minutes into his speech we were disappointed. And so were the members of the gallery; I saw their faces drop when he started going into the negative diatribe that we so often hear. Going back to the corporate plan for Labor in 2010, it claimed that the NBN would pass almost one million premises and we know that they failed to get barely 100,000. That is only half the size of the city of Geelong and less than the size of the city of Gosford. We are talking about major regional centres in Australia—and they performed poorly, not even reaching those expectations.

Ms Henderson interjecting—

Exactly, member for Corangamite. Under Labor, nbn co failed to meet every single target. The member for Blaxland leaves the chamber. He is going back to look at the business plan—the business plan that they did not even do. It is fundamental in major government infrastructure policies to do a cost-benefit analysis, to do a business plan. Anyone with a business background, like my good colleagues around me here, has been through that rigour, diligence and discipline in undertaking business plans.

Mr Taylor interjecting—

I note the comment by the member for Hume. I will just reflect on one of the comments from Labor opposition speakers. They said that stories are flooding in from electorate offices about the poor performance of the NBN. Let's look at one example that the member for Hume informed us of recently—the NBN fixed line to some 25 towns in his area and the NBN fixed wireless to some 35 towns in his area. Those are the roundabout figures, member for Hume. Correct me if I am wrong. Those people in the member for Hume's electorate, especially in the east, are rejoicing. They have got NBN, they have got better broadband, because of the way this federal government has successfully implemented the NBN, managed the company in the way it should be managed, undertaken business plans and has effective local members. Whether it be the member for Hume, the member for Wannon, the member for Longman, the member for Corangamite or the member for Barton, they have each individually got results in their local electorates, pushing the case for more effective broadband and NBN.

Let's revisit some recent history of the project itself. I want to go back to some of the fundamentals of the complexity of this program. It is the largest and most complex infrastructure project ever embarked on, and our corporate plan is the most rigorous and detailed financial planning document. As the scientist, politician and writer Benjamin Franklin once said, if you fail to plan you are planning to fail. How apt is that. I see the people in the gallery nodding their heads and acknowledging the work of this government. They have good NBN. They have given us the thumbs up. They know that this government is on the right track. That is why they come in this chamber—to hear facts, to hear success, to hear execution, to hear corporate governance and to hear a successful government implementing a rigorous, detailed plan. That is why they come into this chamber and hear what the government is doing.

Let's look at satisfaction with broadband. There have been surveys recently that have highlighted that the levels of satisfaction with broadband services using fibre to the node are the same as those using the gold-plated fibre to the premises. What value for money we are delivering. It was not so long ago that we had former Prime Minister Julia Gillard complaining about the gold-plating of our electricity networks. Again I see the people in the gallery shaking their heads about the gold-plating of electricity networks and those utility bills that they hate. But when we talk about the NBN they are happy. They are happy that they are getting NBN, they are happy that their broadband is improving and they are happy that the coalition government is delivering.

Let me finish with a good little story from Murray cod farmer Noel Penfold. He used to live in a broadband blackspot. But since hooking up to the National Broadband Network he has more than tripled his exports of this native fish to China. He said: 'The internet was very poor before that to Wagga Wagga. But now it has improved and I'm exporting far more to China.' This is due to the success of our story on the NBN, the success of our trade agreements and the success of this work of the government. I look forward to the opposition coming forward with maybe a better business case and corporate plan than they did previously.

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