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

Ten kilometres from Parliament House, in 2017, in the nation's capital, Canberrans are experiencing some of the worst internet speeds in the world. Upload speeds and download speeds in Canberra are some of the worst in the country and in the world. Over the last 18 months, I have been campaigning through my Send Me Your Speeds campaign to get the people of Canberra to send me their internet speeds, and to send a message to the government that Canberra needed to be on the NBN rollout map, because, until a few months ago, Canberra was not even on the rollout map. We were one big blank space when it came to the NBN rollout. But, hooray, two months ago, Canberra was finally put on the NBN rollout map after 18 months of campaigning.

But our work is not done yet. I am still encouraging Canberrans to send me their internet speeds because, even though we are on the rollout map, we are still not going to get NBN rolled out to large parts of the electorate until the second half of next year and early 2019. I am asking Canberrans to continue to send me their speeds so that we can mount the campaign to get Canberra prioritised on the rollout map, and also avoid what looks like being an absolute patchwork of different technologies right across the electorate. In some streets, we have a patchwork of fibre to the node, fibre to the premises and fibre to the kerb in one street. That is what is happening in Canberra. I do not know what is happening in your electorate, Deputy Speaker—you have probably got NBN! But we have not.

I am going to share with you some of the parlous, appalling speeds that my constituents are experiencing in 2017 here in the nation's capital, some of these suburbs just 10 kilometres from Parliament House, which is why we need to be prioritised on the NBN rollout map and we need to get an even approach to the technologies that are going to be rolled out right across Canberra. Ritesh in Gordon has an upload speed of 3.44 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.43 megabits per second. Aasif in Calwell has an upload speed of 1.12 megabits per second and a download speed of 2.77 megabits per second. Richard and Lois in Isaac—and this is shocking—have an upload speed of 2.06 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.26 megabits per second. Malcolm in Conder has an upload speed of 1.27 megabits per second and a download speed of 2.29 megabits per second. Peter in Isabella Plains has an upload speed of 3.43 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.32 megabits per second. Richard in Gowrie has an upload speed of 0.69 megabits per second and a download speed of 3.85 megabits per second. Elisa in Fadden—listen to this one, remembering that Fadden is about 15 to 20 kilometres from Parliament House—in 2017 in the nation's capital is dealing with an upload speed of 0.76 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.18 megabits per second. It is absolutely breathtakingly bad. Andrew in Calwell as an upload speed of 3.24 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.40 megabits per second. Jason in Narrabundah—everyone knows where Narrabundah is, because we are talking five kilometres from Parliament House here—has an upload speed of 0.11 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.01 megabits per second. We are talking five kilometres from Parliament House, in the nation's capital, in 2017, and poor old Jason in Narrabundah is dealing with an upload speed of 0.11 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.01 megabits per second. If poor old Jason in Narrabundah is not reason enough as to why we should be prioritised, I do not know what is. That is why we are going to maintain the Send Me Your Speeds campaign. I want Canberrans to continue sending me their speeds. We have to maintain pressure on this government to get Canberra prioritised. We had a victory, Canberra, with the rollout. We finally got on the rollout map, after 18 years, and now we need to be prioritised.

I will just quote from the messages some of my constituents send me when they send me these absolutely appalling speeds—I mean, poor old Jason! 'No company appears to be doing anything as they seem to be focused on NBN, which is not due till 2019,' so they are having huge problems getting any connection. 'What an absolute disgrace for the nation's capital.' 'It is of course frustrating that I can sometimes not even answer work emails or do my banking of an evening. But on the other side of town people use the internet to watch movies during the day or to play Xbox games. I assume that some people in Tuggeranong, such as the elderly, wouldn't have the capacity to make complaints or trouble-shoot problems, like I have been able to do, and are thus paying a lot of money for an unusable connection.' This is what Canberrans are dealing with, which is why we need to be prioritised on the NBN rollout map, which is why Canberrans need to continue to send me their speeds and why we need to avoid, as far as possible, a patchwork of technologies, often in the same street. I have outlined to you the challenges that Canberrans are having with internet connections and why we need to be prioritised on the NBN rollout. That is why I was very disappointed that there was not any funding for that in the budget.

I now want to turn to the fact that not only are Canberrans not getting the NBN for some time but they are also caught in this crossfire at the moment. They are caught in this valley where they are waiting and no telcos will actually help them out, because we are awaiting the NBN. I hold a lot of mobile offices and coffee catch-ups across my electorate and there is one issue that Canberrans time and time again have said they need my assistance with, and that is telecommunications infrastructure. The issue we face in Canberra is that unless you live somewhere near the fibre rim that was built by TransACT your internet experience is going to be limited. One of the telcos who has taken advantage of the existing infrastructure in Canberra is iiNet. While iiNet offers a good service, great speed and connectivity, an increasing number of people in my community have had a disastrous—and I am talking disastrous—customer experience with the telco. Many people have contacted my office, frustrated with their inability to contact iiNet regarding complaints with their service. I do not know whether anyone else has had an experience with iiNet, but it is very difficult to find a human body at the end of the line, and iiNet fails to address the problems raised by its customers within an adequate time frame.

Tony is a good example and a representative of many here in Canberra. The first time I heard from Tony was in September last year. His telephone problems started in June last year. He contacted me out of frustration from his experience with iiNet and the TIO. I wrote to the minister about Tony's experiences and waited for a response. Tony contacted my office in October last year, letting me know that my letter must have done some good—some action was being taken by iiNet, but there was concern over whether he could keep his landline telephone number. Go figure! The phone number issue dragged on, and in December last year I wrote again to the minister about Tony's frustration and the inability of the telco to resolve the issue to his satisfaction. I am still waiting for a response from the minister. The 'Fifield triangle' strikes again! In January this year, I wrote directly to the manager of customer services at iiNet for the first time. It was the first time because up until then we had been unable to get the contact details of someone—a warm body, as I said—that we could talk to or escalate customer issues with, unlike the other major telcos such as Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.

I talk about this issue because communication, whether it is landline, digital, wireless or satellite, is important for all of our communities. Customers are left waiting too long for their issues to be resolved by providers, and in Tony's case it was months. As consumers, we are not getting what we pay for.

Let me share with you Jenny's experience with TPG and Telstra. Jenny and her husband operate a small business from their home in Fadden. I outlined some of the appalling speeds in Fadden. They had a faulty line and outages had occurred several times since March this year. When the outages occurred, Jenny contacted her retail service provider, TPG, who sent someone out to investigate. Jenny was advised whether the TPG engineer would arrive in the morning or the afternoon—we have all experienced that. That was the best time frame that she could get. This meant that Jenny lost half of a day in wages—she is a small-business owner—waiting for someone to arrive. When the TPG engineer finally arrived, he or she determined that the fault was with the infrastructure provider, Telstra. TPG then advised Telstra of the fault, and the same process happened. The Telstra engineer contacted Jenny and let her know whether they would arrive either in the morning or in the afternoon. Again, half a day's wages were lost for Jenny's small business. When the Telstra engineer visited the property to look at the line, he agreed that the line was crumbling and told Jenny that it would not be fixed, because the NBN is coming.

This is what I mean. They are caught in this halfway house. NBN is not coming to large parts of Canberra until late next year or early in 2019. You have all these issues with telecoms, and everyone is just saying: 'Oh, no, just wait. Just hold your breath and wait for NBN.' It ain't coming soon enough! The advent of the NBN does not divest telco providers of their current responsibilities. As I said, a lot of these places are not getting the NBN until late next year or early in the year after that. These telcos have a responsibility to the people of Canberra until that time—until the NBN is rolled out and it is up and running. Given how bad our current services are—as we can see in my Send Me Your Speeds campaign—telco infrastructure across Canberra should be a priority, particularly for those worst affected areas in the south-east area of Tuggeranong.

People in my community are not getting the support for the services they pay for. Small businesses in my community cannot work effectively without access to adequate phone and internet services. Even when the NBN is rolled out—and who knows whether the current rollout dates will be adhered to?—there will still be a need for infrastructure to be maintained. At the moment, it feels like the telco providers are shirking their responsibility. As I said, Canberrans are caught in this halfway house. I have written to the Minister for Communications on this issue. I have requested a meeting with him to discuss Canberra's communications needs more generally. I just hope that the minister does not shirk his responsibility on this one too.

Finally, as shadow assistant minister for cybersecurity, I want to touch on the communication, or lack thereof, around the WannaCry incident on 13 to 16 May. The WannaCry incident affected about 12 Australian small businesses, four in the NT. These are the latest figures, and I am sure they are not definitive. The fact that the small businesses fell prey to WannaCry is very unfortunate, but it comes as no surprise to Labor because, since the release of the government's cybersecurity update, Labor has been calling for the government to focus as much attention on the engine room of our economy as on the boardroom. But it was only four days after the WannaCry ransomware attack on the NHS that the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security issued a statement urging small businesses to be proactive about improving cybersecurity and updating operating systems.

In November last year, after the whole census incident, the incident communication was highlighted as a major weakness by all and sundry, really, but particularly by the Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security. He said in a follow-up interview after the release of his review:

With cyber security you cannot design out all problems. If we accept the fact that we do our best to reduce the likelihood of it happening, but know that we will fail, then we need to get much better at that whole crisis communications and crisis incident management.

You just wonder. After that review late last year, we had this incident where no-one really knew what was going on. We heard that 200,000 people had been affected in Europe—150 countries, from memory. We heard these significant figures, and what happened in Australia? Was a crisis communication plan rolled out immediately? Were we as individuals and small businesses inundated with tweets, Facebook posts, media releases and messages through the media? Not at all. Despite the review into the census last year, despite the fact that there was a lot of hand-wringing and commitments made on much better crisis communication, nothing changed. At a later stage I will be going through the lack of communication from government agencies and from the government over that time, when there was so much uncertainty. I know from being in a communications business that crisis communication has to be out there urgently, treating situations seriously and ensuring that people are kept safe.

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