Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That's right. They did. The fact is the Liberals have never been a friend of Medicare, and the Liberals have never been a friend of the NBN. It was Tony Abbott, when he was opposition leader, who in 2010 appointed Malcolm Turnbull to the shadow communications portfolio—no doubt a decision he came to regret later on—with an instruction to demolish the NBN. That's how much bipartisan support of the National Broadband Network there has been from the Liberal Party; when they were in opposition, they wanted to demolish it. And then, of course, they came to government, and that's exactly what they did—10 years of neglect of the NBN.

Neglect takes many forms. If you think about a house, you can leave it there, not maintain it and not do anything with it, and over 30 years it will slowly fall apart. Nature will take its course. That's one form of neglect. That's benign neglect. But what the Liberals did in government was active neglect. They neglected the NBN. But they also took active decisions to make it less than it could be.

The Labor government of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard had a plan for the NBN which was based on full fibre to 98 per cent of households and businesses. Think of that. Ninety-eight per cent of the Australian population would have had full-fibre connectivity—superfast, eminently upgradable to bring on new technologies and new services, fantastic for telehealth, fantastic for education and incredibly important for business. That's what full fibre would have delivered.

The Liberals came to power, and they absolutely smashed the NBN. They demolished that Labor plan for full-fibre connectivity to most Australians, and instead they brought in this hybrid monster—this multi-technology mix of fibre to the node, fibre to the kerb and all sorts of different technologies, even using coaxial cable in some places. They made an absolute mess of it. They said it would be cheaper, and you know what? It wasn't. They had to completely and consistently upgrade their budget offerings. The cost of the NBN under the Liberals spiralled up, while the quality of delivery went down. In 2020, they declared 'job done' and wiped their hands, but that was far from the truth. So many homes and so many businesses are still not properly connected.

What have we done in the three years we've been here? This terrific Minister for Communications, the member for Greenway, works like an absolute Trojan. I have the great privilege of being the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications on the Arts. I work closely with the minister's office, and I see how hard she works across the incredible depth and breadth of her portfolio. She has been absolutely tireless in improving the NBN, particularly in improving the NBN's delivery and outreach to regional and rural Australia, especially in education services, which is an absolute passion of hers. She is delivering more fibre to regional homes—the homes that were left out by those opposite when they were in government. She is delivering fibre to the homes and businesses in regional Australia. That's our commitment to the NBN. We know what a powerhouse the NBN is, as a piece of national infrastructure, when it comes to the delivery of health, education, commerce and recreational services for so many Australians. Millions of Australians love to stream TV, movies and whatever else, and why shouldn't they be able to do that with a high-quality service?

What we have before us today is a bill to ensure that the NBN stays in public hands, because we learn from experience. We know that those opposite—the Liberal Party and the National Party—sold Australia out when they sold Telstra. Telstra used to be a magnificent piece of public telecommunications infrastructure, but those opposite had dollar signs in their eyes. They couldn't wait to privatise it, and that's exactly what they did. The Nationals, to their great shame, sold out the bush, sold out regional Australia, by allowing Telstra to be sold, on the false guarantee that certain services would be guaranteed. Those guarantees have not come to pass in the way we would have hoped. There are so many communities, homes and businesses in regional Australia that miss out on the full suite of telecommunications services and mobile services, despite the so-called guarantees. If only Telstra had remained in public hands then we would have had the surety and accountability of services being maintained, particularly in regional and rural Australia.

The fact is that Telstra is now responsible to its shareholders, not to the Australian public. They have a corporate responsibility to make as much profit as they can under the law. When you have a corporate responsibility to make as much profit as you can under the law, to deliver the best result for your shareholders, that means areas of no profit or low profit miss out, in favour of areas where there's high profit. And you know what? Regional Australia is sparsely populated—not a lot of customers and not a lot of profit to be made by Telstra—so it doesn't get the services. That is unless they're forced to the table by this guarantee, and it's very hard work getting the terms of this guarantee met.

We don't want to see the same thing happen with the NBN, and we know that's what the Liberals and the Nationals will do if they are ever returned to the government benches. We are putting in guardrails for the NBN because we know how important it is as a piece of national infrastructure, in terms of both service delivery and cost control. We don't want to see NBN prices, under a privatised NBN, going up to whatever the market will demand. That's what this bill is about.

I continue with the member for Sturt's contribution, when he made allusions to the PM being out of the country. I'm not sure if the member for Sturt was here yesterday, because I'm pretty sure the Prime Minister stood at that dispatch box when this bill was introduced. He spoke very proudly and very passionately in favour of this bill and said how passionate he was that the NBN should stay in public hands. I've got his speech here; it's a very good speech. It's in Hansard. For anybody listening to this, I recommend reading the Prime Minister's speech from yesterday morning on the introduction of this bill, because he spoke eloquently about the importance of the NBN as a piece of national infrastructure. He said:

The National Broadband Network is a vital national asset. It delivers an essential public service. It was built by Australians for Australians. It belongs to every Australian citizen, and it belongs in public hands.

They are very fine words from the Prime Minister, who has not been shy at all in his support for this bill. In fact, I think it speaks volumes that, in the hours before he was to depart the country for those very important talks at ASEAN, he took the time out of his schedule to speak to this bill. That's how important this bill, and the NBN remaining in public hands, is to this government.

The member for Sturt was a repository of nonsense. I have more quotes from him. He talked about how the Liberal Party in government 'enhanced the quality and service of the NBN'. I mean, they were the mob who got rid of full-fibre NBN to 98 per cent of Australian homes and businesses and went out and bought—was it 60,000 kilometres of copper? I don't want to mislead the House. Yes, they bought 60,000 kilometres of copper—enough to wrap around planet earth 1½ times—to build their version of the NBN. Copper was terrific in the 20th century. In the 21st century we've got fibre-optic cable, which provides much better delivery of telecommunications. They turned their back on optical fibre in favour of copper—60,000 kilometres of it. It made the copper markets very happy but it wasn't great for telecommunications customers.

They said, when they were in government, that their NBN version would cost $29.5 billion. Then there was an update, 'Uh-oh, now it's $41 billion,' and then another, 'Uh-oh, now it's $51 billion.' That was before they settled at $58 billion, which of course was around what a full-fibre NBN, under the Labor government, had been budgeted to cost. If they'd simply continued with what the then minister, Mr Conroy, started out with, which was full fibre to 98 per cent of the Australian population, we would have ended up, over their 10 years in government, with a first-class NBN we could all be proud of. It would have cost the same as the mess they left us with three years ago, which the Minister for Communications is still diligently trying to fix and repair. It's like we inherited a highway full of potholes and smashed up kerbsides, and there she is trying desperately to fix this mess they left us and deliver the first-rate NBN the Australian people deserve.

I am very pleased to be standing here in support of a public NBN. It is so important for this country that we make sure it doesn't fall into private hands, because a privatised NBN will mean higher costs for consumers. And, frankly, I'm also concerned about the national security implications. The NBN is an expensive bit of kit. You're not going to find too many Australian buyers or investors leading the pack to purchase it, so we're possibly looking at foreign interests wanting to purchase it. There are national security implications in vital telecommunications infrastructure being purchased by foreign investors, and that's a concern of mine as the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts. It is absolutely in the public's interest, in our economic interests and in our national security interests to keep the NBN in public hands. That way it remains accountable. That way we can plug the gaps that the Liberal Party left us with three years ago, after their shocking term in government, and that this government is trying so hard to repair.

Deputy Speaker, I'll leave it there. The NBN is vital to the national interest, and it must stay in public hands. I commend this bill to the House.

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