Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the great historical obligations, burdens or duties of every coalition government that comes to office is to clean up the complete mess they have been left with by the previous Labor government. Where would you like to start? How about the issue of border protection? Look at Labor's border protection mess that this coalition government has to clean up. Hundreds of children locked up in detention camps by the Labor government were let out by the coalition government. There is the issue of trade. We saw the mess Labor created, the delays of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, fixed up and repaired by the coalition. Defence is another policy area of complete and utter disaster from the Labor Party. Again, the coalition government comes in and fixes up the mess. And energy costs. What a mess the Labor Party left us. Under their governance, there was a 100 per cent increase in electricity prices. In six years under the Labor Party we saw a 100 per cent increase in electricity prices.

It is exactly the same with the NBN: another complete Labor mess that the coalition has to come in and fix up. And what do Labor contribute? They put their hands up and go, 'You haven't fixed up our mess quickly enough.' They have created all this mess in every portfolio you can imagine, and their complaint is, 'You haven't fixed up our mess quickly enough.' Let's look at some of the mess they left us with the NBN. We know that in 2013 there were only 51,000 premises connected—that is, one in 50 across the nation. So far, we've got that down to one in two. Then we saw the hopeless budget and time overruns. And who can remember Labor's NBN promotion they did on the internet? They invited consumers or householders to go on the internet and have a look at a map of where the NBN rollout was. This map had colours that would fade away—so when you clicked on the map to try and focus on your street, to see when you would be connected, the map that Labor put up would fade out. Residents had no idea whatsoever.

We knew that people would be waiting another six to eight years if we did not fix the mess the Labor Party left us. That is what households in Australia would be waiting for if the coalition did not clean up that Labor mess. And it would have cost another $30 billion. The changes the coalition have been forced to make to clean up this mess that Labor left us on the NBN have saved the Australian nation $30 billion and six to eight years. This is what we inherited in policy area after policy area after policy area, and the only contribution we can get from the Labor Party is, 'You didn't fix our mess up quickly enough.'

I would like to take this opportunity to give a quick update on my electorate of Hughes—down in the beautiful south of Sydney—to show how we're progressing with the NBN rollout. So far, 44 per cent of the electorate is connected or has passed, and we have 32 per cent of premises that have taken up the NBN. Close to one-third of households in my electorate already have the NBN working in their premises. We have another 48 per cent under construction and ready to go, to be rolled out. My electorate will be complete by the middle to end of next year. There are some suburbs which have waited a long time for the NBN. We know Grays Point will be 1 May 2018. We know Hammondville, Pleasure Point, Sandy Point and Voyager Point are areas that have had difficulty with telecommunications for many years, and the NBN will be rolled out on 1 June 2018. Kirrawee, Chipping Norton and Moorebank will also be rolled out on 1 June 2018. Bundeena and Maianbar, down at the national park, are also areas that have waited a long time for improvements in their communications. We'll have that done next year. (Time expired)

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