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

It is always good to be acknowledged, even though I am the member for Swan. If they do ever name an electorate 'Irons' I will be very thankful for that. I thank the member for McEwen. When the member for Bradfield was talking about Labor's failures, one of things he mentioned was the insulation scheme. That is when I raised the point about the four deaths. I have just heard the member for McEwen raising the deaths of two people on the NBN project, which is an absolute tragedy. It does not condone anything that has happened before it or gone after it, and it is something that we should prevent. I do not think that in that situation that should be saying that we condone the four deaths because there are two deaths on the NBN. I cannot agree with you on that one.

Getting back to the MPI. I always wonder why the Labor Party raise own goals. The MPI for them today is an own goal, if we look at what was happening in Western Australia with the NBN prior to the 2013 election. I will go back to a question that is relevant to today's debate, when we are talking about black holes. They asked the then Minister for Communications, who is now the Prime Minister, a question about the construction of the NBN in my electorate of Swan. His response was:

I thank the honourable member for his question and I can well understand the frustration and disappointment of his constituents—

from the previous government.

There was a $31-billion black hole advised to the Labor government at the end of 2010—

it seems to have a familiar ring for the Labor Party, the black hole—

and, regrettably, quite a few truths have vanished into it.

One of them was the true state of the broadband rollout by the NBN. In fact, as the honourable member said, in October 2011 the then government announced that construction had commenced in East Victoria Park and Burswood. Two years later there is no ready-for-service premises in those areas. Indeed, despite barrels of propaganda, reams of leaflets and flyers, and lots of claims, on election day in total there were—

guess how many?—

34 brownfield premises in Perth connected to the fibre network—

after six years. What sort of delivery is that? I see that the members on the opposite side have gone very quiet now. In the six years since they announced the NBN rollout there were 34 connected brownfield premises—and they talk about delivery now. They stand here and say we have not delivered.

I can tell them what the number of connections in Western Australia are now. Just a couple of weeks ago the Minister for Communications came over, and the member for Hasluck and I switched on the first fibre-to-the-node area in Western Australia. This means that residents at 7,000 premises in one part of my electorate will now be able to place an order for the NBN—and that is on top of the 26,000 who already can. Between 2013, when there were only 34 brownfield connections in the whole of Perth under Labor's so-called NBN, and now, in my electorate alone there are over 30,000 premises that are available to connect to the NBN—and they raise an MPI saying we are not delivering! That is just an absolute joke.

To get back to their joke of a system: Labor left WA completely stranded in 2013. Their NBN project was such a shocking mess that the construction contractors in Western Australia refused to continue building. They pulled out of their contract with the Labor government—not with the Liberal coalition government, with the Labor government. Syntheocontractors pulled out. In 2013, Syntheo, the company contracted to build the NBN in WA and South Australia, also handed back 47 sites in Western Australia which Labor had listed as under construction. Can you believe that? They had listed 47 sites as under construction in 2013, and not one of them had a single piece of NBN material in them—nothing at all. What a joke. What a joke this MPI this. It is an absolute joke.

After the election we corrected the maps. There were maps for the electorate of Swan that had connections, work and construction being done everywhere. We went and corrected those maps to what they were. We then had people ringing my office saying, 'We've been taken off the NBN map.' They were not taken off the NBN map because had never been on it. Labor had put them on the NBN map—I am not going to use the word; it is unparliamentary—when they were not even on it. They were not even scheduled to be on that map.

Again, this MPI is an absolute joke. It is another own goal for Labor, so they can bring it on every day. Let's talk about your delivery, your policies and your lack of performance. Do not listen to what Labor is saying; look at what they actually did, which is absolutely nothing. (Time expired)

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