James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) after 6 years under the previous Labor Government only 51,000 premises were connected to the national broadband network (NBN) at a cost of $6 billion;

(b) today, after 9 years under a Coalition Government, there are over 12 million premises ready to connect to the NBN; and

(c) Australians were only able to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the Coalition Government's rollout of the NBN;

(2) acknowledges that upgrades to the NBN were able to be made only because the Coalition Government adopted a policy of building the NBN quickly using the least cost technology;

(3) further notes that the Government has backflipped on their previous policy of fibre to every premises and adopted the Coalition's upgrade policy but cannot identify how it will be funded; and

(4) calls on the Government to explain how they will fund their NBN policy and whether this will include an added cost to Australians.

What a relief it was that the coalition was elected in September 2013, for many, many reasons but particularly for the fate of the NBN rollout. Of course, we never could have imagined—no-one could have predicted—what sort of requirements would be on that National Broadband Network when the COVID pandemic struck and an enormous burden on Internet provision, particularly in private homes, suddenly came into effect because, of course, through the pandemic, people needed to isolate. Sometimes they were under a work-from-home direction. Certainly we all remember the experiences that we all had in using our homes as a workplace—in some states for quite an extended period of time.

Thankfully, by the time we had this enormous burden in place, there had been an enormous change to the rollout of the National Broadband Network, commencing with the change of government in September 2013. At that time, the previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government had connected the NBN to 51,000 homes in six years, at a cost of $6 billion. At that breakneck speed, by the time the COVID pandemic struck we might have had a little over 100,000 homes connected to the NBN if Labor had stayed in power. Of course, they didn't. The government changed, and we dramatically changed our approach to rolling out the NBN, which saw us look to roll it out as rapidly as possible and to connect as many homes as possible as quickly as we possibly could in the most efficient cost model. That has seen, from the most recent figures, that more than 12 million premises across the country have access to the NBN. Around 8½ million connections are in place. This was all achieved between September 2013 and the May election in 2022.

This is extremely significant because, when we had the enormous burden put onto the NBN through an unpredictable requirement of connections throughout the homes of Australia, thanks to the coalition's rollout of the NBN we had the service there ready for people. Under Labor, if they continued at the pace in which they were rolling out their expensive and slow version of the NBN, we might have seen barely 100,000 properties or more connected to the network if you extrapolate it out. Instead, we now have around 12 million properties that can connect.

This puts the NBN in a very strong position, obviously having that customer base, to now undertake further investments into that capability. It's certainly the vision of our side of politics that the NBN is a financially sustainable, growing business that is repaying the Commonwealth for the investment into that infrastructure that we have made. It's also our vision that, by virtue of having that extremely large customer base, the NBN is able to invest in further enhancement of internet services, particularly increasing speeds, to businesses, communities and households throughout the country, particularly making sure that we're investing in increasing the standard of services in regional and remote communities.

That is all happening. Minister Fletcher made significant announcements over the last two years to enhance investment in both regional and remote connection speeds but also, of course, the business fibre network system that allows businesses to access speeds of up to 1 gigabyte per second. That is quite phenomenal and is transformative for certain businesses, particularly, I might say, in health care and the health system. That extremely high-speed availability of data and connectivity is transformative around health technology and the ability to provide healthcare services in new and innovative ways into the future.

This motion is an opportunity to note the very significant achievements under the NBN in both connecting a record number of Australian households, rolling out the scheme to more than 12 million sites across the nation; and being there when it was most important, particularly during the pandemic, to provide Australians with connectivity through the National Broadband Network. (Time expired)

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