Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the NBN rollout. Under the previous government, at the time of the last election, just two per cent of premises across Australia could access the National Broadband Network. Since the election, the NBN rollout has ramped up significantly, and today around one in 10 premises can access the NBN and, under nbn's new corporate plan, by June 2018, three in four premises will have access to the NBN.

Under the coalition government, the electorate of Macquarie will have access to the NBN more than six to seven years earlier than under Labor's plan. As of this month, premises with NBN services available in the electorate of Macquarie number around 12,500. Around 8,860 premises in the electorate have an active NBN service. NBN build, I am pleased to say, is underway for an additional 15,800 premises in Macquarie, and I am advocating very strongly for those who are yet to be listed on the build to be included as soon as possible.

It was pleasing to announce this month that some 3,400 premises in Katoomba are a step closer to getting access to the NBN with construction of the fixed line network now underway. This section of the rollout, and the entire rollout as a whole, is an important milestone for telecommunications for the people of my electorate, providing greater certainty for homes and businesses who now have, or will soon have, access to superfast broadband.

For Katoomba, final designs are now complete, meaning that in coming weeks, nbn co subcontractors will be seen in the streets, laying out fibre and building cabinets to house the electronics needed to supply superfast broadband.

The nbn plan in the Macquarie electorate is being consistently rolled out: in December last year, construction commenced for some 3,700 premises in Wentworth Falls and Leura. The rollout is all part of the coalition government's ongoing reform of the NBN to ensure that superfast broadband can be rolled out quickly, more cost effectively and with minimal inconvenience to households. Speeds on the new network will easily support high-definition streaming on multiple devices at one time.

The coalition government recognises that consumers want fast broadband as soon as possible. All services over the NBN will allow families to stream movies, surf the web and complete schoolwork online—all at one time—as well as assist people who have home businesses. Businesses will also benefit from the vastly high bandwidth available.

The coalition has cleaned up the NBN mess left by those opposite—Labor—which would have left many Australians waiting a decade for better broadband services. Rollout of the NBN under Labor was slow and costly, plagued with chaos and misinformation—one of the most poorly managed projects in the history of the Commonwealth.

Two years ago, under Labor, only 49,000 users were on the fixed network. The nbn's 2016-18 corporate plan reveals that full fibre to the premises could not be completed until 2026 at the earliest and could be as late as 2028—six to eight years later than the government's plan.

The plan also revealed that a full FTTP NBN would cost between $20 to $30 billion dollars more than the current government's plan, and that it is essential to deliver fast broadband to Australians sooner, not force Australians with no or poor broadband to wait more than a decade for the NBN. At the last election, there were only 260,000 premises in fixed line areas that were passed by the NBN. Today that figure is more than 1.3 million.

Many residents in the Blue Mountains, in particular, have had concerns that they would not have access to the NBN. I have strongly advocated for the electorate, written to the CEO of nbn and made representations to the minister directly to ensure they were included in the rollout as soon as possible. I have been working on and advocating for all communication needs for residents in the Macquarie electorate.

The three-year accelerated nbn plan announced in October last year is exciting news for around 39,570 homes and businesses in the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains. In total more than 9.5 million homes across Australia will be able to access a service while construction is underway.

Under a coalition government, by using the existing copper and cable infrastructure running into homes, nbn can complete the network far sooner and at a dramatically lower cost to taxpayers. nbn is working to provide fast internet to every home and business in Australia by 2020.

I also look forward to the satellite Sky Muster servicing the more rural and regional parts of the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains, which is expected to be launched at the end of April this year, with services connecting from May.

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