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

Let me make it clear that there's one thing in this debate that the coalition takes very seriously, and that is unsatisfactory customer experiences on the NBN. Where there's an unsatisfactory experience we want to see it dealt with, we want to see it fixed. That's why, for example, Bill Morrow, the Chief Executive Officer of NBN Co, said last week:

We're working with retail service providers and industry as a priority to improve these figures and the overall experience for consumers. This work is being reflected in a 13.6 per cent decline in overall TIO complaints between July to September 2017 and a 26.3 per cent decline in TIO complaints about landline and internet services over the same period. We believe it is an early sign of movement in the right direction.

So let me be absolutely clear: if there are unsatisfactory customer experiences we want to see them dealt with, we want to see them fixed; we take them very seriously.

Let me make equally clear what we do not take seriously. We do not take seriously the attempts by the Labor Party to rewrite history and pretend that it wasn't their collection of chaotic decisions which created a starting point which we have been working to resolve. Let me remind you of some of the key Labor mistakes in relation to the NBN, including the shocking process by which this model was first developed. Let me quote from an independent audit into the NBN public policy process conducted by the eminent former public servant Bill Scales AO. He had this to say about the process that led up to Kevin Rudd—remember him—announcing this approach:

After just 11 weeks of consideration, the government had decided to establish a completely new start-up company, now called NBN Co, to roll out one of Australia's largest ever single public infrastructure projects. The NBN was to be rolled out in eight years at a preliminary estimated cost of around $43 billion. There is no evidence that a full range of options was seriously considered. There was no business case or any cost-benefit analysis or independent studies of the policy undertaken, with no clear operating instructions provided to this completely new government business enterprise within a legislative and regulatory framework still undefined and without any consultation with the wider community.

That is what Bill Scales, an eminent former public servant, said about the train crash public policy process which led to Kevin Rudd announcing the NBN in early 2009. So that was the first mistake—the terrible process.

The next mistake was appointing a board with virtually no relevant skills, and management with very little relevant skills. Here's what the forensic accountants KordaMentha had to say when they reported on this issue in August 2014. Their assessment of the board appointed by Labor was that it had 'a collective lack of deep operational experience and insight in areas critical to the success of NBN Co'.

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