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

What is Labor's plan to deliver the NBN? That's a very good question. The shadow minister is very good at complaining. She does a very poor job of telling Australians what her plan is. But let's have a look at the plan that was put forward by the Labor Party for the 2016 election, because I think that's the best evidence we have of the continued narrative of rank incompetence from these people, who have a dismal track record on broadband and no proven capacity to deliver. The promise of the previous shadow minister, the member for Blaxland, at the 2016 election was that they were going to connect two million more premises to fibre than the coalition was promising, and it was going to cost not one dollar more. It's an economic miracle! That is the kind of thing that Swannie's economic brain might have come up with. What did The Australian Financial Review have to say about this ripper plan? It said:

A lack of considered detail bedevilled the NBN under Labor. The fact the party doesn't want to give any details about its new plan—or more accurately, a reinstatement of the old NBN—and not talk about the cost, makes this policy look like the last: an expensive joke.

It was a pretty accurate assessment, because when it comes to delivering a broadband network, this mob on the opposite side of the House have form, and their form is hopeless, rank, embarrassing, chaotic incompetence. That's your track record. We've seen nothing from the shadow minister and we've seen nothing from the opposition that suggests they are going to be anything else. We are getting on and delivering the National Broadband Network.

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