Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In October 2016 the Prime Minister hailed the coalition's NBN as 'one of the greatest corporate turnarounds in Australia's history'. What an absolute joke. It was one of the greatest infrastructure betrayals that this country has ever seen. It was a great infrastructure project that would have delivered fibre to the premises to 93 per cent of Australians, and he absolutely wrecked it with his multitechnology mix. It was a visionary Labor project that would have looked after the future of economics in this country, education in this country, health care in this country and even the lifestyles of people in the home to watch things like Netflix and streaming services and enjoy modern services in the home. All of it has been put at risk by a coalition second-rate NBN.

For the vision of the original NBN to be realised, it requires speed and it requires bandwidth. These are not things that this government can deliver with its second-rate NBN. Nothing illustrates better the way this government has treated the NBN than the fact that it actually bought 15 million metres of copper wire. In the 21st century, with the rest of the world going to fibre to the premises using superfast optic fibre, this government allowed the NBN to go out and purchase 15 million metres of 20th century copper, which is a fraction of the speed for data upload and download. It's an absolute joke.

Let's talk of what the experts have to say. The minister stands there and says, 'The NBN, under the coalition, is working so well.' Let's look at what the experts have to say. Professor Rodney Tucker, of the University of Melbourne, calls the coalition's NBN an extremely costly disaster. In his paper 'The tragedy of Australia's National Broadband Network', he concludes, 'This situation is nothing short of a national tragedy.' Associate Professor Mark Gregory, of RMIT, says the economic case for the coalition's second-rate NBN 'was nonsense from the outset' and is 'the largest single waste of public funds in Australia's history'. Internet Australia CEO Annie Hurley says:

We have turned a vision into a quagmire … FTTN—

fibre to the node—

is an obsolete technology, yet it continues to be rolled out … we are going to have to come around and do it all again. That is the tragedy.

That is the tragedy. They have 'turned a vision into a quagmire'. That is the epitaph that will be on this Prime Minister's gravestone.

In my electorate of Lyons, I did a little bit of research on what the constituents have to say. I was flooded with comments from people wanting to have their say in this speech today. In Westbury in my electorate, 25 jobs were in jeopardy at an engineering company. They'd bought land to build a new workshop and they informed Telstra and the NBN of their intention well ahead of time. They built their workshop. NBN Co said after the workshop was built that connection could take between one and two years, as it is a greenfield site. So 25 jobs were at risk. Luckily, Margaret in my office is an absolute gun. She swung into gear and she convinced NBN of the importance of prioritising this connection. That is only one of scores of examples I have got here of people in my electorate and businesses in my electorate who are suffering under this second-rate NBN. This country deserves better.

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