Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As much as I have great respect for the member for Parramatta, I'm not going to stand in this place and be lectured to by those opposite about their cut-rate NBN that they rolled out and that was constructed and designed on the back of a beer coaster. The approach cost millions, and it would have taken more than six years longer to complete and left millions of Australians behind during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the latest published data, if the corporate plan under Labor were undertaken, in June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there still would have been well over 1.2 million homes and businesses that could not order a service. That's 1.2 million people who would have missed out but who, under the plans that the government put in place, actually had access to the NBN. I think that's a great testament to the work that we as a government have done.

Even on their own numbers, Labor would have still left millions of Australians behind when broadband was needed most. In contrast, our approach has been to ensure that the NBN has been efficiently and economically delivered right across Australia. Today there are currently 11.9 million premises ready to connect, and over 99 per cent of Australian premises can now order an NBN service. More than eight million premises have already been connected to the NBN, and today 70 per cent of homes and businesses are on 50-megabit-per-second plans or higher. That is frequently the contrast in this place between the government and those opposite: we actually deliver for the Australian people, and those opposite talk about it.

It's because of this government's approach that we've seen the NBN be there for Australians when they needed it most. That happened almost overnight. Nobody saw that coming. That happened when we had to adapt to the way we worked, learned and accessed vital services and when we had to keep in touch with our families. It is the NBN rollout that this government has put together to fix up the back-of the-envelope job that those opposite did that has actually delivered for Australians. If the NBN had not been rolled out with the speed and purpose that it had under this government using all available technologies, millions of premises throughout Australia may have languished on ADSL speeds of eight megabits per second on average or endured the lockdown with no internet service at all.

I know that in my electorate of Forde, with the problems we were having in getting access to ADSL in the rapidly growing areas of my electorate, those new areas are now directly connected to the NBN, with fibre to the premises—they're not on copper—and that those services are working very, very well. Again, it's under this government that we have delivered for the Australian people through the rollout of the NBN.

I'm pleased to note that the member for Parramatta did acknowledge, in her contribution, that there are in fact 22 business fibre zones across Western Sydney, covering some 66,000-odd businesses. These cover electorates across Western Sydney. The business fibre zone network, in general, has also been very well received in my part of the world, where businesses are now seeing the opportunity to connect to high-speed fibre to continue to deliver the services that they need to deliver to grow their business—

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