Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You may wish to listen to this, members opposite, because this is your record. Labor claimed that a massive 90 per cent of premises in and around Gosford were so-called open for business with the NBN when in actual fact 90 per cent of them were classified service class 0 or service class 1, meaning that, despite the fanfare and the press release, a lot of work was required before those people who wanted a service could actually connect. What is even worse, despite all of this fanfare during the election and during their time in government, when we came into government there were little more than 200 premises connected in my electorate.

What a farce—to tell businesses and families that Gosford was 'open for business', only to discover that, despite Labor's press releases, they could not actually access it at their premise. In fact, Labor were so obsessed with delivering fibre to the press release in Gosford that they forgot that the focus in unlocking superfast broadband is supposed to be about actually getting residents, businesses and families connected. Labor sold people in my electorate a dud deal. In contrast, this coalition government has spent more than two years cleaning up the mess in my electorate and across Australia. We have sought to clean up the mess left to us by those opposite home by home and piece by piece while, at the same time, rolling out the NBN to more homes and businesses sooner, cheaper and much more reliably than Labor.

This government has a responsible strategy to roll out a more affordable multitechnology mix. The case for the multitechnology approach is clear. It is far better for productivity on the Central Coast, for instance, to get fast broadband to premises quickly, than to deliver extremely fast broadband to just an exclusive few years and years down the track. It is like waiting for Godot! You can see the benefits of the Turnbull government's approach in the NBN's latest half-yearly results, as the member for Hindmarsh alluded. They reveal initial customer research showing the level of satisfaction with broadband services delivered through the fibre-to-the-node technology is the same for those using the gold-plated fibre to the premise. I grant you that our approach involves far less fanfare than that of members opposite. But the half-yearly results are a ringing endorsement of our approach. In fact, the NBN rollout is accelerating, with 1.7 million homes and businesses now able to order a connection. We are finally back on track with the NBN rollout, with plans to expand the footprint by 15,000 premises per week, rising to 25,000 per week by the middle of the year. Ultimately, of course, the goal is to connect eight million premises by 2020 across all access technologies.

But let me spend the few remaining seconds I have letting members opposite know about the record that we have delivered to my electorate in just two short years. In my electorate we now have more than 67,000 premises on the rollout schedule or already connected. Around half of these are only weeks away from being 'ready for service'—not simply passed but ready for service—in more than 20 suburbs, like Woy Woy, Empire Bay, Pearl Beach, Saratoga and Tascott. (Time expired)

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