Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the committee chair for her report and the work that she has put into it—not an easy job running interference for the NBN in the current environment. I want to speak to the recommendations of the majority of members of this committee. But, before I do, I want to make the observation that for 12 months members of parliament of this place and the other place have travelled the country listening to the stories of consumers, the stories of businesses who've been struggling to have their connections improved and to have their broadband services fixed. We've heard stories of loss, of woe and of problems from one end of the country to the other, so to say that everything is going well simply beggars belief. I recommend to the Prime Minister that when he comes into question time tomorrow he shows a little more humility to those hundreds and thousands of households and small businesses around the country who've lost thousands and thousands of dollars worth of revenue and thousands and thousands of hours out of their lives because the Prime Minister's NBN project is not working.

The joint select committee has come up with 23 hard-hitting recommendations on how to get the project back on track. We should not as a country be spending $50 billion on the largest infrastructure project we will see this century only to see service standards and quality go backwards, and yet that is the experience of too many consumers. It is a very rare proposition where we see the Greens, Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, the Nick Xenophon Team, Independents and the Labor Party on the one page supporting a series of recommendations. That fact alone should have made government members sit up and say, 'There is something to see here'. There are 23 hard-hitting recommendations on how to get the project back on track, and yet the government members of the committee have not supported them. There have, of course, been a couple of honourable exceptions. The member for Mallee, a man who is obviously in touch with parts of his community, was willing to come out and say, 'You know what, some of these recommendations would make a hell of a big difference in my electorate. They should be looked at.' If only there were more members of the National Party and the Liberal Party who were willing to stand up in defence of their electorates as the member for Mallee was in defence of his.

On the 23 recommendations, we agree with the chair that there is an urgent need for new consumer and supplier rights which provide protections, wholesale service levels and remedies for service failures. You might ask why we need a new raft of consumer protections and consumer rights. We currently have a universal service obligation and a customer service guarantee. I'm sure it'll give all members who are present in the chamber and members of the public in the gallery today great comfort to know that the universal service obligation protects their right to a phone booth but not to a decent standard internet service. In this century, it's more attention that's needed to the broadband service than to the phone booth.

When something goes wrong, if you are a small business—like the small businesses I spoke to in Rockhampton last week whose internet service went down not only on Mother's Day but on Valentine's Day as well, or the motorcycle store owner who was watching, on a daily basis, people leaving thousands of dollars worth of goods on the counter to walk out because the EFTPOS service wasn't working—you need a little bit more than the sort of condescending response that we got from the Prime Minister today. You need service standards and guarantees that your problems are going to be fixed, and fixed in a timely manner. It's also why we need the introduction of new business-grade products specifically geared towards small business. I'd have thought all of those members who pretend to represent the interests of small business would have got behind this Labor proposal, this Independent proposal, this Greens proposal—the proposal supported by all of the non-government members—and say, 'We need to do more for small business by introducing business-grade products that have service level standards within them.'

We have recommended an overhaul of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman because it is well and truly overdue. It might surprise you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to know that we've got a telecommunications industry ombudsman that doesn't even have the power to request the NBN to attend a mandatory meeting and to talk to the consumers and the phone companies when they have caused a problem. What is the worth of an ombudsman if they cannot even do that basic thing? We are recommending in this report that these issues get dealt with as a matter of priority.

Mr Deputy Speaker Hogan, you represent a regional electorate. You will know that there is a lot of discontent in regional Australia about the NBN. They are very, very concerned that they are being left behind. They are seeing the rollout of superior technologies in the cities while their services are being delivered on out-of-date technology. Whether it's the copper or the Sky Muster service, it simply isn't meeting their needs. They raise their issues with their local MPs, but it doesn't seem to be getting through. It is for this reason, and to champion the interests of regional and rural consumers, that the majority in the committee are recommending that the government require the establishment of a reference group for the NBN, advising the board on rural and regional matters.

Now, I can't for the life of me work out why members of the National Party aren't saying, 'Yes, me too,' on this. Where are the members of the National Party, when you've got advocate groups across the country, from Broadband for the Bush Alliance to the National Farmers' Federation, saying, 'Yes, this is exactly what we need'? Where are the members of the National Party who are willing to stand up and say, 'We need our voice being heard from rural and regional Australia in the places where the decisions are being made'? They're certainly not being made in the coalition party room. That's why this recommendation's got a lot of work to do.

It's disappointing that these recommendations haven't been accepted. It's very disappointing that these recommendations haven't been accepted. For the last two months, I have been travelling around the country with many of my colleagues, holding forums with businesses and with consumers throughout regional Australia. They are all saying the same thing. They are saying, 'We need a broadband service that is going to work. We shouldn't be spending $50 billion on a project only to see service levels go backwards; and, if we live in regional Australia, we shouldn't be paying twice as much for a service that is half as good as the one that people in the city take for granted.'

I'm pleased to be speaking on the tabling of this report. I ask all members of the National Party to rethink their position and all members of those regional Liberal Party electorates to rethink their position. Do the right thing by your electorates. Take the recommendations into your party room tomorrow and demand that your minister and your government implement the recommendations of this review.

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