Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was talking on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015 before and there was a deathly silence from the Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government sitting there. We very rarely see any animation from him. As the shadow minister said, those opposite have gutted this bill like a fish. They have stripped all the guts out of it, all the insides out of it.

The member for Higgins is here, replacing the colt from Kooyong—do not get me started. Here is another one playing fantasy frontbench late at night, working out when she is Prime Minister who is going to be a minister. Maybe the major projects minister will get the gig of Treasurer then and we will see some animation? At the moment it is only when you get onto telecommunications; that is the only time the mummy, the member for Bradfield, emerges from his crypt and wanders around. I have got to make sure I am talking about the amendments because those in the gallery would be fascinated to know all about the access to universal pricing and the like. They know they do not want to hear from the mummy again, the member for Bradfield, emerging from his crypt to the dispatch box to tell us all.

I have to confess I misled the House in my speech because I said that the Howard government had eight broadband plans. But you know what? It was 19. The member for Chifley tells me it was 19 plans over 11 years. What were they doing? Talk about being asleep at the wheel. Now we have their broadband bill after 2½ years. This is after the Prime Minister had been sent to destroy the National Broadband Network when he was the communications minister—that was his briefing note from the member for Warringah. Did you see them at the table last night at the anniversary of the Howard years? Instead of celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the Howard government, they could have been celebrating the 19 plans which did nothing for a national broadband network. There were some pretty uncomfortable camera shots there of them all sitting around the table.

I know, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, that you want me to speak about the amendments and I will be sure to because we do not want to remind the minister about how, when those opposite embarked on the copper plan, they started out with a costing of $29.5 billion and it went to $56 billion. They promised that everybody would have the National Broadband Network by 2016. Here we are in 2016, but it is now going to be 2020.

For all of those in the gallery, the ability to run their small business and the ability of their child to download their homework and interact with the education system on the internet are diminished by this government's preoccupation with destroying a great national project. Now we see their first bill come into this place. You would think they had enough time to think about it after 2½ years but then the minister got up here and presented five amendments, destroying the integrity of this bill and all of their work over the last 2½ years. He got up here and gave a speech that lasted, what?

See this speech in context