James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I'm 'facting'; that's what I'm doing, but I welcome the interjection to suggest that the NBN wasn't constructed between the years of 2013 and 2022. That's an embarrassing suggestion, but I'm pleased to have it on the record. We'll hold the front pages of the nation's broadsheet newspapers tomorrow for that spectacular claim across. We built the NBN, and I'm a customer of the NBN, as a lot of members of this parliament would be. We support the NBN and all other best, low-cost technologies available to Australian families to meet and achieve their connectivity needs. We live in a time of technological change, and we encourage the NBN to embrace and think about how they're remaining a competitive service provider to Australians as technology marches forward and new ways of being connected come about.

Obviously we've seen competitors to the NBN enter the market—with a degree of success, it needs to be honestly stated. The Starlink system is one that has a reasonable amount of profile and a lot of Australians have been turning to it—hundreds of thousands of Australians. They have the option of a type of competitor service via the NBN wireless product. Regrettably, it seems that the consumer decision-making process is leaning towards the alternative option being provided by Starlink. So, I certainly take the opportunity in this debate to make the point to the NBN that I hope they're reflecting on the need for them to be a competitive low-cost service provider to all Australians.

Others in this debate have made the point about regional and remote connectivity in particular, and that's exactly where this point applies. And we know that, unfortunately, there are a lot of regional and remote customers who are turning away from NBN wireless and embracing alternatives, like Starlink. They're doing that as consumers, and they factor in the quality and the cost of the service. So, the NBN can't stand flat-footed. It needs to make sure that it continues to look at how it can embrace being the highest-quality service provider to Australians. We have spent a lot of money on this national infrastructure, and in our party we're about looking at ways to enhance and expand the quality of the service provision of the NBN, and there's nothing in this legislation about that—nothing whatsoever.

There are different conversations we can have in this chamber about the NBN. One is the one the government wants to have, which is to debate a fictitious and unnecessary rumour, with no basis in fact whatsoever, and therefore spend the time of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia—with all the other options of legislation that we could be debating—on an amendment to their own legislation from their own last time in government, when their own Prime Minister served in that cabinet that brought that legislation through the parliament. Instead, we could be talking about other ways to invest in and enhance the quality of the NBN, the variety of service options that are provided to Australians. And we could consider why parts of the NBN business model are not succeeding right now and are clearly being eclipsed by options from competitors who do not enjoy the benefit of the significant public investment that we've undertaken, in a bipartisan way, in the NBN, both as infrastructure and as a business.

This change is going to continue to happen into the future. We know new technology will continue to come online that puts at risk some of what we currently see as the most cutting-edge technologies, which may become legacy technologies into the future. Satellite wireless connectivity is a very obvious one that could have been predicted and has come to fruition, and there'll be other technologies that we can't necessarily predict right now but that provide an even better-quality, lower-cost connectivity option for Australian consumers.

So, we could be talking about those things, and we could be ensuring that when we talk about the NBN we talk about Australian families and how we deliver to them the best possible service that they require in order to be connected and to live in the 21st century and participate in the 21st century economy. But, as I said, instead we're debating an unnecessary amendment to Labor's own legislation that they now seem to urgently need to move through this House, for reasons that have not even been articulated in the opportunities they've had when making their contributions on the second reading of this bill.

We in the coalition are proud of what we've done when it comes to building the NBN—the actual building and delivery of the NBN through our time in government. There will be a lot of opportunities to talk about ways to further enhance how Australians are provided with the highest quality services in a range of ways, including through telecommunications and internet connectivity. We are very proud of not only what we've done but what we will do into the future, and we are quite appalled that the government's main focus in this area is on bringing forward this unnecessary legislation that they themselves can't even create an articulate or cogent argument to justify.

I commend the shadow communications minister for his contribution on this bill and the work that he's doing more generally because he's actually making sure that the debate in this country is about the real issues affecting Australian families in the communications portfolio, not what this legislation's about.

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