Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I take on board your point, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would not even imagine trying to do that to your good self. I have huge respect for the Deputy Speaker, but I have even greater respect for the people that he and some of the regional members represent in this place, and I frankly think that more needs to be done for the regions to improve telecommunications availability and, in particular, broadband.

As I said, there were some fundamental errors right at the get-go in the way in which the now Prime Minister—then shadow communications minister—approached this. He also tried to talk it down, saying that it was just going to be a video delivery service—mimicking the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah—not realising that most projections for data growth across the planet were showing that data would grow at a phenomenal rate and you needed a network to be able to manage that data growth. And the best the coalition could do was dumb down the network and dumb down the argument about supporting a better network—trying to weave it into all their usual attack and all their usual spin. As a result, public policy has suffered, and it has been not only Labor constituents who have suffered but also, importantly, coalition constituents, particularly in the regions, who have suffered.

There was a point at which the coalition said, 'We will make sure that we look after the worst affected and we will prioritise them in the rollout.' Well, like every other promise the coalition has been made in this debate, that went by the wayside as well. So did the promise that, by the end of this year, 2016, everyone will have access to at least 25 megabits per second download—and, off the top of my head, that would be 50 megabits by 2019. That promise went by the wayside as well.

The other noteworthy thing is that the former CEO, Mike Quigley—who was hounded by the Prime Minister, whose reputation was completely trashed by the Prime Minister when he was the shadow communications minister, an outrageous bullying of the then CEO—has taken the time to analyse where we are at with the NBN. What appears to have occurred is that there has been a $15 billion blow-out in the total cost of the NBN project since the coalition came to government, and there has been a review of how that could possibly be the case. The paper put forward by Mike Quigley analyses the difference in the cost of the various parts of the NBN between the 2013 strategic review and the 2016 corporate plan. In round figures, it found that the cost of rolling fibre to existing premises fell from $14 billion to $11 billion, the cost of rolling fibre to new premises fell from $3 billion to $2 billion and the combined cost of the fixed wireless and satellite components of the rollout fell from $6 billion to $4 billion. On those bases, on the existing configuration of the network that Labor had commenced and which was carried over by the coalition, those costs fell. The cost of the transit network, the backbone of the NBN, is virtually unchanged at $1.5 billion, up only by $100 million. It leaves the HFC and fibre-to-the-node networks as the only possible cause of the blow-out. Mike Quigley writes: 'HFC and fibre to the node are the real culprits of the $15 billion increase, not previous management, not inadequate financial systems and not hidden costs in the FTTP rollout.' The Prime Minister consistently talked up the cost and time taken to roll out fibre to the premises and talked down the cost of rolling out fibre to the node and HFC. But, as Mike Quigley said, the chickens are coming to roost.

There was the delay and extra expense involved in the renegotiation of the definitive agreements with Telstra. We were told it was only going to take six months. Wrong! It took way longer. The cost to rollout HFC and fibre to the node in the timescale that the coalition promised was grossly underestimated, and that is largely why we are seeing a $15 billion increase. On every measure, on all of the key measures, the coalition has got it wrong. As I said, they have a reverse Midas touch when it comes to broadband: every time they touch it, they stuff it up!

The strategic review said the second-rate NBN will cost $41 billion. After two years, the reality is that the second-rate NBN has cost $56 billion, up by $15 billion. The strategic review said fibre to the node would $600 cost per home. Two years later, fibre to the node costs $1,600 per home—up $1,000 per home or nearly 200 per cent. The strategic review reckoned it would take $55 million to fix up copper. The reality is $641 million—up nearly $600 million or over 1,000 per cent. The strategic review claimed that 2.6 million homes would be connected to NBN pay TV by December 2016. Wrong again. Only between 10,000 and 875,000 homes will be connected by December this year. That is down by between 1.7 million and 2.6 million homes, or roughly 66 per cent to 100 per cent lower revenue. The government reckoned they were going to rake in $2.5 billion in revenue in 2016-17. Two years on, it has been estimated that revenue in 2016-17 will be $1.1 billion, down by $1.4 billion. IT capex was estimated at a shade under $2 billion. But it is over $2½ billion, so that has increased as well.

All the measures of what they are doing are continuously wrong. As the shadow communications minister said, in any other circumstance where you had performed so poorly you would expect a demotion. But the communications minister, after stuffing up the NBN and after exhibiting his reverse Midas touch on broadband, did not get demoted; he got promoted to the top job in the land! You can see all the ways he has affected the NBN rollout and he is cheered on by the National Party. who swallow the line that they are doing well when, on every single measure, they are not.

This bill makes it even worse. It waters down the consumer safeguards, it waters down the ability to get uniform pricing and it has been criticised by industry. It is yet another example of all of these things. From the moment the Prime Minister took on the job of shadow communications minister, he made errors and kept compounding them. He made promises that he could not conceivably keep. When he went from being shadow communications minister to communications minister, he made the promise of download speeds of 25 megabits per second by December 2016. He made the promise that everyone would get faster download speeds of at least 25 megabits per second by 2016. Within 12 weeks of getting the job, he came into this chamber and admitted he would not be able to keep his promise. Some people would say it was a lie. But they continually made promises they had no capability of being able to extend to the Australian public. I reckon it demonstrated that they had not had the full rigour and testing of whether they could feasibly extend that commitment to the Australian people. They led people on that they could deliver faster, cheaper and better than what was on offer at the time. They have failed on all those counts.

This is an absolutely outrageous way to treat the Australian people. To condemn them to poor service when we are in an age where service needs to improve and not to be more of the same or worse. Countries are overtaking us in the quality of our broadband network. Countries are using good broadband to support the innovative activity required to diversify economies, create new jobs and generate new wealth. These are the type of thing that happen when you allow the broadband network to degrade. To be fair to the Prime Minister, it is not just him; it is the entire coalition. They tried to fix broadband 19 times in the Howard government and failed. They then came up with a dodgy policy leading into the 2010 election. Ever since the once shadow communications minister and now Prime Minister has been in place, everything he has done has been terrible and we have suffered as a result. (Time expired)

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