Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

If you were to drive down the road 15 to 20 kilometres from where we are standing today, you would find some of the worst broadband coverage in the country in terms of availability and quality. We are talking 15 or 20 kilometres down the road from the nation's Parliament House in the nation's capital. As communications minister, the Prime Minister had 2½ years to do one job. What does he have to show for it? We have missed targets, we have cost blow-outs and we have broken promises. As of last week, nbn co had completed 29,000 of his second-rate fibre-to-the-node projects, less than a third of its target of 94,000 premises.

This is a government that is failing to deliver its own second-rate copper NBN. This week's leaked report revealed the true cost of that failure being $56 billion—that is, $56 billion worth of failure. That is nearly double what the Prime Minister said it would cost at the last election. We always knew the Prime Minister's second-rate NBN would be cheap and nasty but now it is not even cheap, and people are sick of it. They are sick of the delays, they are sick of the mismanagement and they are sick of being promised one thing and getting another. People in the southern part of my electorate are particularly sick of it; they are not even on the NBN rollout map. We are talking 15 to 20 kilometres from this building, from the nation's Parliament House in the nation's capital. It has the worst broadband coverage in the country in terms of availability and quality. It is absolutely outrageous—this is the nation's capital!

When the latest rollout map was released the residents of Tuggeranong, like so many millions of other Australians, eagerly typed their addresses into the website and were appalled to see that they were not even there. There was just one big, blank space—one big, blank space on the future of NBN for the southern part of my electorate, particularly in Tuggeranong. They are not even on the rollout map, and there is no indication of when the NBN is going to be coming to them; no indication at all. There is nothing—just one big, blank space. There were lots of nice dots everywhere else in Australia, and good luck to everyone else in Australia, but there was just one big, blank space for the southern part of my electorate. As I said, only 15 to 20 kilometres from Parliament House in the nation's capital there is one big, blank space on the NBN rollout map, with no idea of when we are going to get NBN.

Naturally, my constituents are feeling pretty frustrated. I feel those frustrations too. So last December I presented a petition signed by hundreds of Canberrans calling for the new communications minister to take action. When presenting the petition I asked the minister: 'Minister, please prioritise Canberra's NBN rollout map. Our situation is bleak, as you have heard. It is dire, and we are being left behind. We are victims of a digital divide here in Canberra.' It took more than two months to get a response from the minister, and it is hard to imagine a less constructive response. The minister wrote back that, yes, many in my electorate are considered underserved in terms of broadband quality and availability—as if the people of Canberra did not know that already. You would think that, having recognised how urgent and pressing the NBN rollout is to so many in the Tuggeranong region and its surrounding areas, the government might make delivering the NBN a particular priority, particularly when they have acknowledged that many areas in my electorate here in Canberra are underserved in terms of broadband quality and availability.

However, the minister went on to say, 'The coalition government is prioritising underserved homes and businesses in the NBN rollout, and by 2017-18 more than 65 per cent of those underserved homes and businesses will be able to order a service on the NBN.' Brilliant—with 65 per cent, surely we are going to be included in that. But guess what? That 65 per cent does not include the electorate of Canberra and those parts of Tuggeranong that are only 15 to 20 kilometres away from the nation's Parliament House; 15 to 20 kilometres away from the seat of democracy here in the nation's capital. And even though it has been acknowledged by the minister that they are underserved, they are not being prioritised for the NBN. They are not part of that 65 per cent that is going to be rolled out in future.

There is a human cost to the cost blow-outs of project delays and cut-rate service delivery. These are some of the letters that I have received in recent months. I repeatedly read these out in parliament, and I will continue to read these out in parliament until my electorate gets prioritised on the NBN rollout. This is the nation's capital, and 15 to 20 kilometres from Parliament House we have the worst coverage in the country in terms of availability. It is absolutely outrageous, so I will continue to read these letters out in parliament, I will continue to petition the minister and I will continue to write to the minister until the electorate of Canberra gets prioritised. Geoff says:

We cannot even get ADSL2 service, although we are paying for a higher-end service. If we are serious about becoming a clever and innovative country, it starts with having top-end infrastructure. Don't cut us short.

Alex wrote to me when he managed to find an upside to the latest report of delays and reviews:

I'd prefer that the Liberals make absolutely no progress at all on the NBN. The less they do, the less they can stuff up. When NBN comes to Isabella Plains, I want it to be fibre to the premises, done right the first time.

Alex might have been able to see the silver lining to the government's chronic mishandling of the NBN, but others just cannot. They have seen it very differently. Rebecca says:

I am so tired of living in a fantastic area that has broadband far, far worse than I got while living in Brisbane 10 years ago. Some nights my broadband is so slow I can't download text emails.

Here we are in the nation's capital, and here is Rebecca not being able to download text emails.

How is this acceptable in 2015?

which is when she wrote me the letter.

I am about to commence university studies online, and I will need to be able to view or listen to lectures and download-upload large files. Please make this possible!

All I can say, Rebecca, is, 'Good luck with the university studies, given the fact that you cannot even download text emails as a result of the outrageously bad service that is being provided to the people in the southern part of my electorate.' They are not even on the rollout map and they are not even being considered for prioritisation, despite the fact that the minister has acknowledged that we are underserved. This came from Roger:

The NBN has the potential to transform our economy—

Yes, Roger, it does—

to create new jobs and businesses and cut urban congestion and pollution. But it's still off in cloud-cuckoo-land for many. Along with thousands of other people in the ACT, I'm starting to wonder if I will ever see higher-speed internet. Contacts in Melbourne are already on the NBN and they think my speed is a joke. Canberra should be a high priority because of our government and tertiary education sectors.

And there was this from Daniel:

Please help. Our internet is terrible—three or four times a week it won't work at all.

We are talking about 2016, and three or four times a week our internet will not work at all.

Certainly limits productivity!

It does indeed, Daniel. It does certainly limit productivity.

Work provides flexible work options, but without a reliable internet this is limited, and can also be dreadfully inefficient even when connected! And we're not even on the rollout map!

Yes, Daniel, I know. I have been trying to get this message through to the communications minister for some time and, despite the fact that he has acknowledged that we are underserved, despite the fact that he has acknowledged that we are not on the rollout map, unfortunately we ain't a priority. That really does typify this government's and former coalition governments' views on Canberra: the complete contempt and disdain they have for this city, the complete contempt and disdain they have for the public service and the complete contempt and disdain they have for our servants of democracy.

We saw what the Howard government did to this city in 1996. As I said, today 20 years ago was a dark day for Canberra in terms of the decimation wreaked by the Howard government. And we are seeing the same contempt and disdain from this Abbott-Turnbull government, not just in the NBN but also in the cuts to funding for our cultural and scientific institutions and cuts to science jobs and Public Service jobs. It was 8½ thousand at the last count, but that is nothing compared to 1996 when it was 15,000 and sent Canberra into an economic slump. Yes, Daniel, we know what coalition governments' views on Canberra are. They have got form. All I can say is that Sir Robert Menzies would be turning in his grave.

The day before yesterday I was out with a colleague trying to defend those jobs at the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority that the Deputy Prime Minister wants to move to his electorate. These are highly specialised, highly skilled jobs and he wants to move them up to Armidale. The approach is: 'No, these people do not have families; they do not have children in schools. Let's just move them up to Armidale as part of some exercise, some political stunt. Let's just move people around as if they do not have lives, aspirations and dreams, as if they do not have careers here in Canberra.' It just underscores this government's and former coalition governments' complete contempt and disdain for Canberra.

Mary wrote:

It is very sad for a country like Australia to not be more advanced in our technologies. To think that parts of our capital city do not have access to the NBN is so backward.

Glen said:

Under the original NBN rollout plan, my suburb was to get NBN in May 2013. Still waiting for an acceptable alternative, with nothing on the horizon to give hope. Is it time to move to the Northside?

And there is Adrian, who wrote:

… in global standards we are a third world country when it comes to Internet download speeds and pricing! Latvia has faster average internet speeds than we do!

And then there was this letter from Renny, who works in one of the many local small businesses that are struggling with second-rate internet speeds:

I read, with utter disbelief and disgust, that Theodore, Calwell and the like are—yet again—missing out. If this wasn't bad enough I see that places like Wanniassa are getting included. These suburbs already have access to some form of high speed internet (TransACT) and now they are getting a second bite of the cherry while we in the south struggle with technology that peaked 15 years ago. Before the change of Government we were told that the NBN would be in our area in 2015. Now that has been pushed back to 2018 … or never maybe?

As I said, a lot of these areas are not even on the rollout map, so we do not know when they are going to be appearing. Renny continued:

Has anyone thought about the businesses, such as mine, that are trying to operate using an internet service that is one of the worst in any developed nation?

As Adrian said, Latvia has faster average internet speeds than we do.

This is not fair! What have we done to attract such scorn and cynicism?

Unfortunately, Renny, this is what you get when coalition governments are elected. As I said, they have complete contempt and disdain for our nation's capital and for Canberrans.

Renny's frustrations are echoed all across the electorate of Canberra and all across the country. As a former small business owner myself, I know how it feels. You have a deadline with a client. You have spent weeks, often months, working on a particular project. You have laid it out, you have carefully edited it, you have carefully researched it, you have put a lot of work into it and you are really proud of the piece of work that you have produced. You put it in a PDF and send it to the client by deadline on a Friday afternoon. Your next pay packet is dependent on that product being delivered to the client by deadline. Can you imagine what would happen if that were Renny? With poor old Renny the file would be somewhere in his clogged up outbox and the client would be getting it in six months time. By that stage Renny would probably have lost the client and the business, and God knows how he would be paying his mortgage. Small businesses depend for success on their reputation and the ability to deliver a quality product to their clients on time and to deadline.

This is outrageous. I again call on the Minister for Communications: Minister, please, I have written to you and I have petitioned you. Will you please prioritise Canberra on the NBN rollout map. You have acknowledged that we are underserved, so will you please put us on the priority rollout map. Canberrans deserve it. We do not deserve to have worse connections than those in Latvia. (Time expired)

See this speech in context