Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are small businesses in the Upper Blue Mountains who successfully operate in spite of the NBN. These are people with fibre to the node like Aaron from Bethany Manor B&B in Leura. He relies on copper for connection, as do homes and businesses from Lawson to Mount Victoria and in McGraths Hill, Mulgrave, Vineyard and parts of Pitt Town, Kurrajong Heights, Windsor Downs and Wilberforce. This copper doesn't provide them with a fast or reliable connection, which means that Aaron's almost perfect scores from guests are marred by poor wi-fi connection. Ron runs Blazon in Bullaburra, doing lighting, sound and video. When it rains, his FTTN disappears and people phoning him hear that his number doesn't exist. He has no idea how much business this has cost him. He and Aaron spent hours on the phone trying to improve the connections. Children's film and TV producer Keaton has given up on the NBN. Instead of being able to work from home, he has to keep his production in Sydney and commute. Keaton can see the short-sightedness of the current policies, especially how they're failing young people. Jon has switched to Starlink because FTTN isn't up to the job.

These people have been ignored by the Liberals and denied upgrades to their fibre to the node. Labor will fix that. If we win the next election, we'll connect homes to fibre for free if people want it. That will give these businesses a boost, give students reliability and make things safer when disaster strikes.

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