Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor took a number of commitments on the NBN to the last election. One of them was an enforceable service guarantee, and this is why. One of my constituents had been keen to get the NBN and, on checking the rollout map, it turned out that the other eight houses in the street were ready for connection and his was not. Despite many attempts by him and my office, we just can't get a clear answer as to why. Originally, my constituent's NBN connection was slated for August 2018. Then it was pushed out to August 2019, and then there was this odd situation with all of his neighbours connecting while his house was in an NBN black hole.

We contacted NBN Co, which provided this unhelpful response: 'Although our rollout map indicates your address is in a service available area, your address is currently service unavailable.' Weird. So my office made enquiries to NBN Co on his behalf—no response. Ten days later, my office called the NBN area manager for clarification, and we received a response stating that the constituent's home was, indeed, NBN ready. My staff asked for clarification on the installation date—no response. So then I wrote to the minister and—surprise—a couple of days later the area manager explained to us that the rollout map is often not updated. In other words, it's wrong. Two weeks after the original email was sent, NBN Co finally responded, referring back to the area manager's message that it's available.

Because of the confusion, my office checked again two weeks later and asked for an update—no response. We asked again for an update two weeks after that—again, no answer. But it looked good, so the constituent went ahead and tried to get a connection. Last week he contacted my office; he'd lodged a ticket with NBN Co, who had responded with: 'At this stage our systems are indicating that our delivery partners require further additional work to provide a more robust and improved connection to your premises. Because of the sudden and changeable nature of these additional works and the limitations of the information provided to us in the contact centres, we cannot provide further technical details on these additional works.' Here's the best bit—wait for it: 'Please note these works may not necessarily be required within your street or at your premises.' In other words, this is the problem—unless it's not. Unbelievable.

Then we were advised by NBN Co that the case was closed and the rollout map indicated that his home would be ready for installation not now, as the area manager had said, but in July 2020. The day after that, I finally received a response from the minister's office, who advised that my constituent's NBN connection was ready, and all he had to do was install a lead-in cable to the property—which incidentally, he'd done in January. Magically, at the beginning of this week, the rollout map now shows his property is ready for connection. I have a headache, my staff has a headache and the constituent has a headache, but he doesn't have the NBN and, quite frankly, I'm not sure he ever will.

See this speech in context