Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi—and I hope the Prime Minister responded to 10-year-old Anneke in her electorate—particularly for the fact that she thanked the Prime Minister for having the NBN implemented and rolled out into parts of the electorate of Indi.

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015. It is probably topical at the moment because we saw the opposition, today, ask the Prime Minister and the minister for major infrastructure questions during question time, obviously in response to an article in TheSydney Morning Herald. I will go into those areas as well, but I would like to speak about the bill and the success of the NBN in my electorate of Swan now that the coalition Liberal-National government is running it.

As the minister has outlined, there are four measures in the bill. First, there are changes to the Telecommunications Act and the Competition and Consumer Act to clarify the regulation of facilities access. Second, there are changes to the standard access obligations to ensure that a service provider who controls or owns in-building cabling must provide access to that cabling as part of providing access to a declared service. This removes scope for restricting access to competitors and ensures end-users can get faster access to broadband and telephone services. Third, there are changes to the treatment of fixed principles in access determinations and special access undertakings to improve regulatory consistency and provide for more effective regulation. Fourth, there are changes to nbn co's line-of-business restrictions to ensure that nbn co can dispose of surplus assets to any person. Currently, it can only sell those assets to another carrier or service provider.

This is all an important part of the coalition government's ongoing task of fixing the NBN mess it inherited from Labor and delivering some broadband to the people of Australia. I note that the government is acting pragmatically, here, by only including in this amended bill the measures that the opposition and the Greens have committed to supporting. This is consistent with the government's pragmatic approach to the NBN rollout clean-up job left to us by the Labor Party after the last election.

We have heard a few speeches from Labor members and they are lining up to speak on this bill and complain about fibre to the node, which is different from their fibre to the home. They need to remember that under Labor's purist model virtually nothing was delivered in my state of Western Australia by the last election. Yet they come in here pushing for their failed model that would take decades to implement and cost vastly more. The people of Australia need upgrades rolled out now; they simply cannot be waiting for that model until 2025 or 2030.

I will give you some examples from my own electorate of Swan since the last election. Since Labor signed the NBN contracts we have seen, anecdotally, Telstra unwilling to upgrade any of the existing infrastructure servicing my electorate. We have had numerous complaints. People have rung us and said that Telstra will not attend to fix particular problems in their streets or in pits outside their houses or to upgrade lines that have broken down the street. The reason is that Labor left them absolutely no incentive to do so.

We have a situation where telecommunications infrastructure that might need improving or replacing is not being touched, because of the business contracts Labor signed. Imagine if we had to wait another 10 or 20 years for Labor's purist NBN. Suburbs across the country would be stuck with stagnating infrastructure, for the medium term—all to satisfy the contracts that were signed by the Labor Party. The Labor Party needs to get real and get on board, in regard to the mixed technology approach of the coalition, which is being delivered across the country and, in particular, in my electorate of Swan.

We had quite a few problems, pre-election, with the rollout of Labor's NBN. If we look at one example, the lead contractor in Western Australia, Syntheo, not only pulled out of the contracts they had with the Labor government but also pulled out of the state. Unfortunately, because of the way the contracts were written, they also left a lot of subcontractors unpaid, which has left a very bad taste in their mouths from dealing with Syntheo. I must admit, it all happened before the last election under the careful watch of Labor eyes. There were three separate investigations in WA at that time into claims that asbestos was mishandled in the rollout during the six years of Labor management, including in East Perth, Canning Vale and Victoria Park—which is in my electorate of Swan, not far from my office. There was also an incident in Mandurah, which I know the previous member for Swan and Canning, Don Randall, highlighted in his local papers as well.

Since the coalition came to government, there have been some changes—particularly in the electorate of Swan, as I discussed before. When we were elected, in 2013, there were only 34 brownfield premises connected across the whole of Perth. In the six years we had of the Labor government, talking about the NBN and what a fantastic job they were doing, there were only 34 brownfield premises connected across the whole of Perth. In my electorate, alone, there are 78,000 dwellings, so 34 out of 78,000 would not be an achievement. It probably would not even take up a street. For all of the bellowing and hollering from the Labor Party in the build-up to the last election about how well they were doing with the NBN, it certainly did not happen.

To go further, there were only 75 brownfield residences connected in the whole state of Western Australia. There were more announcements and photos by Labor MPs and candidates in WA than there were connections to brownfield sites! I can remember pictures of Gary Gray, the Labor candidate, local councillors and mayors all being lined up with this big red button in front of them and getting photos taken. Then, bang—they pressed the button for the NBN and the NBN was being rolled out. So when it actually came to election day we had 34 brownfield premises rolled out by Labor across just Perth—that is all they had.

But what a difference since the coalition government has come to power—particularly in my electorate of Swan. We can now look at the NBN map on the website. We can talk about a 'sea of blue', but the NBN rollout map for the electorate of Swan looks like a sea of purple, with purple being the colour representing NBN-completed areas where a service is available. In the electorate of Swan we now have 17 telecommunications areas that have been completed, and these span across areas in the City of South Perth, the town of Victoria Park and a segment of the City of Belmont. The actual suburbs with connections now available in my electorate are South Perth, part of Como, part of Manning, part of Salter Point, Burswood, Kensington, Lathlain, Carlisle Victoria Park, East Victoria Park, part of St James, Welshpool, part of Rivervale and part of Kewdale. I would say that is not a bad effort in the period of time that the coalition has been in government, considering what was actually connected by Labor prior to the last election.

There are also nine telecommunication areas in the electorate of Swan which have construction underway. The remaining parts of Manning and Salter Point are also being rolled out. And thanks to coalition's rapid-roll-out fibre-to-the-node plan we are now in build commence across a swathe of southern suburbs in the electorate that extends from Karawara in the west to Langford in the east. Construction began here in November in Karawara, Bentley, Waterford, Welshpool, part of St James, Wilson, Cannington, East Cannington, Queens Park, Beckenham and Langford.

We also have all the remaining parts of the electorate of Swan in the three-year roll-out plan. Looking at the maps provided by nbn co on its website I would suggest that Swan will probably be the first electorate in Western Australia to have NBN rolled out completely. Under the previous government there was no way known that was going to happen.

Areas that still need to be done are Como, where the construction for the remainder will commence in the second half of 2016, and construction is commencing in the second half of 2017 for Ferndale, Lynwood and Riverton. And in the first quarter of 2017 we will have Ascot, Belmont, Cloverdale, the remainder of Kewdale, Perth Airport, Redcliffe and the remainder of Rivervale, which has 14,300 possible sites. We will also have in the fourth quarter of 2016 High Wycombe, which is a new part of my electorate since the redistribution, with an approximate premises number of 20,300.

I also want to make special mention of the Ascot exchange, which services the majority of the City of Belmont. It has been let down by Labor in many ways, but it now actually has a time line to be rolled out and fixed under the government's NBN rollout. There are black spots in Cloverdale and Kewdale where no internet is possible at all. Again, they are now in the rollout phase, as mentioned on the nbn co website.

My constituents are often frustrated with the telcos, that tend to tell them there are connections available when there are not. If we look back at a bit of history, on 17 September 2007 the Labor member for Swan at that time, Kim Wilkie, wrote to the electorate on his Labor letterhead under the heading 'Labor's National Broadband Network will solve Ascot's broadband problems'. He said, 'Labor will invest up to $4.7 billion to establish the National Broadband Network in partnership with the private sector.' For that promise in 2007, we had not seen anything happen by 2013 and still nothing had happened on the Ascot exchange. But that has now actually been included in the rollout under the current government.

In 2008 we also saw the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council commission a detailed broadband black spot survey of the Ascot exchange area that showed the area was in much need of broadband. At that time the report was made as a submission to then Minister Conroy to push for the Ascot exchange to be prioritised by the NBN rollout. And, Mr Deputy Speaker, would you believe that the report was rated extremely highly by the minister's own department. The feedback to the EMRC and to the City of Belmont was that the report was rated extremely highly and that they should anticipate a rollout.

But in the rollout announcement Belmont and the Ascot exchange were left out by the Labor government, for political reasons. The deal signed by Labor with Telstra left no incentive for Telstra to improve infrastructure in the Ascot exchange, so after promising the world Labor left Ascot and the people of Belmont high and dry. The coalition will clean up this Labor mess and prioritise the Ascot exchange in the three-year rollout.

As I said, the NBN is far advanced in my electorate of Swan—I guess it is more advanced than nearly any other electorate in Western Australia. As I said, at the last election there were only 34 brownfield sites actually connected in the whole of Perth. It is something that the people of Perth and Western Australia should remember at the next election. We had a lot of rhetoric but no action by the previous government with their NBN rollout in Western Australia. It was a bit like the way they treated Western Australia with everything: the carbon tax and the mining tax were all anti-Western Australian legislation and taxes to stifle our economy and at the same time we were ignored by their NBN rollout.

The electorate of Swan is likely to be the first electorate in WA to be completed for the NBN, as I said. By the end of next year construction is scheduled to be underway in every suburb in the electorate of Swan. The coalition has turned the NBN around and it has a very good record to take to the next election whenever this may be held. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.

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