John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise and participate in this MPI debate. As I do so, I reflect upon some of the contributions of those opposite and note that whilst they have acknowledged NBN Co in particular a number of times, they clearly do not listen and it is proven that they do not study their progress reports.

It is important that we return to the facts of this matter. Across all NBN technologies, as evidenced in the last NBN progress report, around 90,000 homes and businesses have purchased an NBN connection over the past four weeks. That compares, as we heard earlier, to just 51,000 paying customers on the NBN during Labor's six years in government. That is almost twice as much achieved by the coalition government in four weeks as Labor achieved in six years. Today, one in every four Australian premises—3.2 million—are now able to purchase a connection to the NBN, compared to just one in every 50, or 300,000, at the time the coalition came to government three years ago.

As the Prime Minister updated the House earlier, half of Australian households will be connected by June 2017, three-quarters by June 2018 and the project will be completed by 2020. The Prime Minister quite correctly reflected on that as a tremendous corporate turnaround, versus the catastrophe that we saw under Labor. The coalition is achieving a cost-effective approach utilising available technology and infrastructure. Labor would have cost Australians another $30 billion and taken six years longer.

The coalition's approach, as I said, is a practical and cost-effective one that utilises state-of-the-art technology available across the modes that are being put out to Australia householders and businesses. That is particularly important across regional areas such as the one that I represent in Groom. Back in February 2012 the Prime Minister stated, quite rightly, that Labor had failed to explore all of the available options for providing broadband across Australia, but most particularly in the bush. He made it clear from opposition that we would not compromise on the objective of delivering fast broadband to all Australians, wherever they lived. We have clearly been fulfilling that promise.

In the electorate of Groom I am so thrilled that construction works began in the village of Kingsthorpe, outside Toowoomba, just last month, and they are expected to start in the neighbouring townships of Oakey and Cambooya before the end of the year. This signals a concerted push into the rural areas of my electorate. The next construction phase will see a further 4,000 premises being able to access the NBN by the end of the year through various modes.

The initial time for works to be finalised in Groom was 2020, but under the Turnbull government we have accelerated works such that in the entire Groom electorate anyone who wants to order an NBN service will be able to do so by the end of next year. Therefore, we in Groom and the Toowoomba region are one of the most connected regional areas in Australia. I say to those opposite, who I would suggest have collectively neither an understanding nor an appreciation of regional Australia, that that means a tremendous opportunity for Toowoomba and Darling Downs businesses, which now have endless possibilities for growth and innovation using the NBN network. That, together with roads, airports and inland rail adds to the infrastructure that people in our electorate of Groom can benefit from. That is an example of the Turnbull coalition government implementing state-of-the-art solutions, affordable and practical solutions in our approach to the national broadband network.

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