Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017 and the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017. These bills, which work in conjunction with each other, do two key things: legislate certainty that all premises in Australia can access high-speed broadband infrastructure after the NBN rollout, and introduce a telecommunications levy that will add $84 per year to the bills of up to 400,000 consumers and businesses on non-NBN networks.

Labor will not be opposing these bills. Labor support legislating a universal right to broadband access, as this was the principle we first established when the NBN was announced. Putting the arrangements in legislation will provide certainty beyond the NBN rollout. Labor supports the establishment of a statutory infrastructure provider regime as outlined in schedule 3 of this bill. The statutory infrastructure provider regime will offer certainty that, as we move beyond the initial NBN rollout, every Australian home and small business can get access to a high-speed broadband connection. This would put in legislation an important reform that was initiated by Labor almost a decade ago and implemented through a statement of expectations issued to the NBN board. The statement of expectations required the company to make the NBN accessible to all Australians.

After more than a decade, John Howard had left Australia a broadband backwater. Little has been done under this government. It took those opposite many years to sign up to Labor's principle, but in the end the Australian public gave them no choice. Labor is proud of having fought and reached this point. It's fundamentally about fairness in the digital age. It will ensure that Australians can access high-speed broadband irrespective of where they live, study or work. But there is so much more to do.

Schedule 4 of this bill proposes to apply a new broadband tax of $7.10 per month, which would apply to services on non-NBN networks. This charge is due to increase to $7.80 by 2021. This is Turnbull's internet tax. He owns it. It has come about due to his cost blowouts. The levy will impact the non-NBN networks in the ACT, regional Victoria, the fibre-to-the-basement network in inner city areas and fibre networks in new estates. It is telling that, in the week of the federal budget, the Turnbull government is seeking to introduce a new broadband tax, which is expected to raise nearly half a billion dollars over the next decade. The government's internet tax is expected to add $84 to the annual bill of up to 400,000 residential and businesses services on non-NBN networks. Labor consider this regrettable, but we won't be opposing it. The economics of the NBN are now precarious. It is also important for NBN to be able to compete on a level playing field. An effect of this levy is that it will help to achieve that.

In 2009, the then Labor government decided to build a national broadband network that would extend universal coverage of broadband to regional and remote Australia. This was an important initiative, a true Labor reform and one we are proud of. This decision to extend high-speed broadband across Australia was funded through a universal wholesale pricing regime. This meant that NBN users in the cities would help cross-subsidise higher cost areas in the regions, like my electorate on the Central Coast of New South Wales. It was not part of our plan that there would be a universal wholesale pricing regime and a levy. It was one or the other; it wasn't both. Yet now the government wants to supplement the internal cross-subsidy with a new internet tax. What's changed? The cost of fixed wireless and satellite networks hasn't changed, the cost of effectively what was forecast. The key change has been the abandonment of fibre on the pretext that Australia would get a much cheaper—but, we know, inferior—multi-technology mix. We haven't. What we have is a more expensive, $49 billion multi-technology mix that costs more and does less and that generates $300 million less per annum in revenue relative to a fibre-to-the-premises network. This has created a problem the government now wants to fix with a new tax.

The coalition's 2013 election commitment to deliver the NBN for $29.5 billion and complete it by 2016 was a hoax. The cost of the NBN project increased from $29.5 billion to $41 billion in late 2013. By August 2015, it had increased again by a further $8 billion, bringing the cost of the NBN rollout to $49 billion, with a completion date of 2020—$20 billion over budget and four years behind what the Prime Minister promised. Leaks reveal the cost of remediating copper has increased tenfold to over $600 million. In 2016, the cost of deploying the HFC network again increased, by another $2 billion, as problems began to mount. But there are also challenges on the revenue side. In 2017, retail service providers were called out for selling speed plans the copper NBN could not and did not deliver. Nearly one in two customers on the copper NBN network who were paying for the top speeds had their speeds downgraded and were compensated as a result. It was later reported that one in three homes on copper cannot achieve 50 megabits per second and three in four cannot achieve 100 megabits per second.

Also, the Senate learned that no funding has been set aside in the government's NBN business case out to 2040 to upgrade its copper footprint. Put another way, the already shaky economics of the NBN rely on the assumption that Australians won't need their copper network upgraded for at least another 23 years. So, under this Prime Minister, we have an inferior NBN that cost $4 billion more for taxpayers to build, delivers slower speeds, is less reliable, costs more to maintain, is more exposed to competition from wireless, costs more to upgrade and generates less revenue for those willing to pay. It's crap!

Many Australians remain frustrated with their experiences on the NBN. My constituents continually raise these issues with me. How many NBN complaints do you think have come to one electoral office—100, 200, 300 or 400? To date, 490 people in my electorate have contacted my office to complain about the NBN. Why? Because of slow speeds, dropouts and unreliable services. They make appointments with technicians only to find that no-one turns up. Their issues and complaints are being buck passed, without accountability, between the NBN and the provider and back to the NBN.

I could stand here until the chamber adjourns and would have mentioned only a few. But let's make a start. Let's kick off with the 'You're not on the map' NBN problem. Vicky is a beauty therapist in Bateau Bay. She has been trying for several months to get her business connected to the NBN. She tried several providers but each told her she could not be connected because her address could not be found on the NBN system. When she contacted NBN Co to try to sort it out they referred her to Optus. Optus looked into it—and guess what? They referred her back to NBN Co. And so it goes on. What about the 'It's somebody else's problem' NBN complaint?

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19 :16

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