Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister for the opportunity to respond on the question of the multi-technology mix which characterises the NBN, which is being rolled out by the Turnbull government.

And that rollout is going well. As at 13 October, there were 3,252,709 premises which were able to connect. Of course, when Labor left government in 2013 there were barely 50,000 services in operation. So what we are seeing is the rollout of the NBN gathering pace, and a very substantial number of Australians are now able to access the National Broadband Network using the multi-technology model—a combination of fibre to the premises, fibre to the node and, of course, the HFC—hybrid fibre coax. I do emphasise the point—despite some of the ill-informed rhetoric that we hear—that all of those modes involve fibre at different stages of the network.

When the incoming coalition government developed the multi-technology mix—more specifically, when NBN developed the multi-technology mix—with the assistance of extensive external consulting advice and also drawing on the capabilities of the management team, amongst the considerations was how best to achieve the rollout in the speediest possible fashion, bearing in mind that after six years' rhetoric we had inherited a situation where there was an enormous amount of talk about an NBN network but very little had been delivered.

As I mentioned, barely 50,000 Australians were actually able to get a broadband service, and the primary service delivered by the NBN was supporting photo ops—and they were very good at supporting photo opportunities. If then Prime Minister Gillard had a desire to appear in a photo op with a hard hat and a high-vis vest, then the NBN was at her service. If then Minister Conroy had a desire to be photographed or videoed feeding fibre into a pit, then the NBN was at his service. But when it came to actually rolling out fibre—rolling out the National Broadband Network—it turned out that the company charged with doing that had done a truly dismal job.

Now partly that was undoubtedly due to the fact that there was almost nobody on the board who had any serious telecommunications experience. And the chief executive, while certainly with distinguished experience running one of the largest telecommunications equipment vendors, was not an experienced networks executive. We fixed those issues. We fixed those issues when we came to government. We put in Ziggy Switkowski as chair, one of Australia's most experienced telecommunications executives—the former chief executive of both Optus and Telstra. We put in an experienced and capable management team and we charged the management team with developing the multi-technology mix—the combination of fibre to the premises, fibre to the node, hybrid fibre coax—

An opposition member: Yesterday's technology tomorrow.

Tell me, how many years have you actually worked in the telecommunications industry?

See this speech in context