Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, I proudly rise to speak on the Albanese Labor government's commitment to keeping the NBN in public ownership. The National Broadband Network Companies Amendment (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024 will ensure fairer access for all Australians, whether it's in the city, out in our communities, like ours in the suburbs, or in regional Australia, the Albanese Labor government is protecting Australians' access to the internet from private ownership.

This government knows that high-speed broadband is essential to modern life. Whether it's your six-year-old using online maths resources to improve their multiplication or VCE students studying for their upcoming exams, or an aspirational Australian getting reskilled or upskilled to further their career prospects, the internet has become intrinsically linked to our everyday lives. It makes things easier, more efficient and more connected. But, to make sure access remains fair and accessible for all Australians, we need to strengthen the current legislation to make sure that our National Broadband Network is owned by the Australian people, not some unaccountable private entity.

We all know high-speed broadband is essential to modern life. It allows Australians to work remotely, run their businesses more productively, videoconference with clients and colleagues and supply and receive telehealth services, while enjoying leisure with their families through streaming or gaming.

Keeping the NBN in public hands will protect the NBN and public access to high-speed internet for all Australians to come. If we have been taught anything in Australian political life in the last 50 years, it's that it takes a Labor government to protect and build vital national infrastructure. We build, they block—which is why, through this legislation and our election promises, we've made it clear: the NBN is not for sale.

Legislatively, it's quite simple. The bill incorporates new wording to make clear the preservation of the future of the NBN is in public ownership being an essential part of our lives. Currently, the National Broadband Network Companies Act 2011 includes provisions which outline the steps that need to be undertaken for the sale by the Commonwealth of its shares in the NBN Co. The bill removes these provisions from the act, ensuring the future of the NBN resolutely remains in the hands of all Australians.

For those wondering, why are we so adamant about keeping the NBN in Australians' hands? By having it in public ownership, we protect the NBN and guarantee full government support for the ongoing upgrades of the network and ensure our ongoing regulatory oversight of wholesale pricing. We are making sure that broadband remains available for all Australians.

This government has an ambitious plan in the updated Statement of Expectations issued to NBN Co. Put simply, we want to see more of our country better connected to the internet, and the legislation is one of the many changes and improvements the Albanese Labor government has enacted since coming to office to better the NBN.

For nearly a decade, ignorance and laziness dictated what happened to our NBN, with the coalition taking shortcuts and implementing a broadband plan that was outdated before they even put it in the ground. The coalition refused to see the importance of making sure Australians got an NBN to their homes, not just getting a local node. It's almost as if their apathy and incompetence could be used as an excuse to later trick Australians into wanting to see the NBN privatised.

But Australians know a dodgy job when they see one. We know that the future is best held in public hands. Instead, when you have a government that actually does their job, like our government is doing, you can already see the benefits to all Australians. We have invested in the NBN by committing $2.4 billion to expand full fibre access to an additional 1.5 million premises, including 660,000 in rural and regional areas, from September next year, boosting download speeds by up to five times the current speed, at no extra wholesale cost. A household or small business with a 100-megabits-per-second plan in 2024 will benefit from 500-megabits-per-second connectivity in 2025, as well as upgrading the fixed wireless network, including uncapped satellite plans for future needs.

Upgrades are already making a real difference in the lives of Australians, with faster and more reliable internet access. The government has been ready and has done its job in supporting Australians to have access to the internet—something that the opposition continually failed to do, because they simply gave Australians, especially rural and regional Australians, a lacklustre effort in a job that should have been done properly.

The coalition doesn't understand the NBN and its importance for Australians. It's like they've lost their belief in businesses as well. Do they believe that businesses can operate on a slow and low-capacity internet, with everything being handwritten and mailed or faxed—and the shadow Treasurer knows about faxes—to get to their destination? What businesses can grow and contribute to our economy with an internet connection that drops out every five minutes? But don't worry; these self-proclaimed experts on small business will make sure your business has access to a second-rate copper network and a wire to the node. That really makes things easier for businesses, doesn't it, especially in a competitive environment!

For rural and regional Australians, the so-called party of farmers does little to advocate for your access to the internet, relegating those not in urban areas to the disaster that was the copper rollout. All of this is showing that they have no clue how agricultural businesses work, unless they are big corporations with vested interests. If you're one of those corporations, don't worry; you'll be looked after. But if you're a local farmer, local student or small-business owner in rural and regional Australia, under a coalition government any dreams of reliable access to the internet are left at just that—dreams.

And then there's national security. In a world where we face many challenges, the very prospect of having foreign actors bidding the highest and potentially owning the critical infrastructure is really unthinkable. Would the alternative government consider compromising our sovereignty just to make a quick buck and hand off their responsibilities quickly? Yes; you wouldn't put it past them. Imagine being in a position of leadership and doing the easier thing, not taking responsibility for such an integral service that is essential to the future security of our nation. Think of the risks of privatising the NBN. That's why this legislation is important—to make sure the NBN stays Australian owned and in Australian hands, protecting sovereignty and security for the future of Australians.

In McEwen especially, we know what inaction and apathy towards the NBN by the former coalition government meant to our communities. Our residents had their data limited—both the amount and the time at which they could use it. Even in the face of a pandemic, where average Australians were forced to work from home, those opposite did nothing. They treated our communities as second-class citizens, preventing them from downloading more than 55 gigabytes a month—and that was if they downloaded between 7 am and 1 am under Sky Muster. This had a real impact and put hardship in our community, on top of what the global pandemic was already doing. High-speed broadband and working communication services are not just something that people expect competent governments to provide; they are essential for people to engage in work in this day and age. This was a big reason why the people in our communities viewed the former government as incompetent and out of touch. It was one of many examples of the Liberals and Nationals failing the peri-urban and regional communities of McEwen.

The coalition were too busy focused on leadership spills to govern and properly manage the NBN. I suppose that's because, from day one, they have never supported it. Even in the beginning, they actively opposed it. The two former prime ministers, Abbott and Morrison, did a mediocre job of implementing it. Remember when they did that Fox Studios dance around each other, talking about how they were going to limit it to 25 megabits per second? It was so good that even Clarke and Dawe made a special about it. The coalition have never understood what it's about and what it means to ordinary Australians. Turnbull himself used his own cash to buy fibre-to-the-premises in British Telecom but was then spending our money on fibre to the node and second-rate copper. The only country in the OECD that was buying copper for broadband was us.

Comments made when the NBN was first introduced about how it was 'just for watching videos' show a complete lack of understanding of what it means to Australians. When the coalition were in power, we heard from VCE students in Mernda and Doreen who were finding it harder than their peers in the city to do their study. It was because of the coalition's insistence on putting in second-rate schemes and letting the cost of the NBN rollout blow out due to their inability to have competent policies or put words into action. Our communities were neglected for nearly a decade under the former Liberal government. No matter how many letters or personal appeals to the many ministers who were given the communications portfolio, we were completely disregarded by those opposite. The fact that they have the nerve to stand here and talk on this legislation, when they did everything to undermine and impede the NBN rollout, is a joke. You don't even need a touch of remorse to see what they put our communities through.

Those opposite were, and still are, willing to put their heads in the sand. It was evident when, as communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull claimed, 'There has never been a more exciting time.' He was more focused on his career than on delivering for our communities. He managed to botch every decision in relation to the NBN, riddling it with mismanagement and neglect for the two years that he was in the job. Remember the famous statement he made back on 20 March 2014, as communications minister in the Liberal government: 'If connectivity was so important, why did you buy a house where there was no broadband?' It's almost as good as: 'If you want a good home, get a better job or get rich parents.' That's what old 'Eleventy Joe' Hockey said.

Under the coalition government, McEwen has always been an afterthought, left to get the scraps from the inner city and the big corporations. They stopped the rollout of the fibre NBN and had enough copper to go around the entire planet 1½ times. They produced a degraded system at double the price they said it would cost. The city of Whittlesea had already put pits and pipes in the ground for fibre optic, but they were left empty because those opposite decided that we weren't good enough to get fibre to the premises. They put it in in their own seats, but, as we know, pork-barrelling is a specialty of those opposite.

Their time in government was defined by their incompetency, but their NBN rollout was really a crowning achievement, deemed by many commentators as a national tragedy. You would think that losing government would have given them a little bit more humility and care and maybe even made them appreciate the NBN. But we see from the comments made by those opposite that, really, that's not the case. One of their self-confessed best and brightest, the member for Casey, told his story about the CFA volunteers not being able to send an SMS during the June storms of 2021—in 2021, they were in government; so he missed that point—but he's confusing NBN services with mobile broadband. No wonder they seem to want to give it away to the highest bidder; it's better than them admitting that they simply don't understand the importance of this. We also heard from the member for Flinders saying the quiet part out loud. Even though the shadow minister has been in damage control and saying he has no intention of changing ownership of the NBN, the member for Flinders went on Sky News and said:

It has always been in the contemplation that it would be privatised when the time is right.

They can't even get their stories straight. During their time in government, we saw Australia's ranking fall to 65th in the world in 2022 for broadband access and usability. It is just unfathomable that they could do that. They just seek to sew confusion amongst the Australian people. They can't stick to their party lines, and they know little about the programs they're talking about.

The NBN is a Labor initiative, because Labor builds things. We build for the future; they just block and wreck. We understand the importance of it for all Australians. We understand the importance of the NBN for both the economy and for the security of our nation. This legislation not only keeps the NBN in Australian hands but also makes sure that the Australian government does its job and makes the NBN fair and accessible for every Australian. You would think that that would be important and that we wouldn't have this delay, but once again we see the coalition of noes, the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Greens, lining up together—and we now see the Greens wanting to delay the passage of this bill even further. You would have thought, with what happened in Queensland, that they would have started to look up and say, 'We'd better start working for the betterment of the nation, not for ourselves.' But, alas, that's not the case.

This bill should go through. It's important that it gets passed. It's important because we need to know that critical infrastructure, like the NBN, remains in public hands, to make sure we don't go through all the problems we've had in the past where we've seen privatisation of the likes of Telstra and, of course, our power companies in Victoria, which made prices more and more expensive. It is our government that works to build this nation and to make sure we put the things in place that people need when they need it and how they need it. It's time the coalition got out the way, got on board, and started supporting us. Without this legislation, we further risk seeing things being sent off to private enterprise, which will then cause things to just run amok through our communities.

After nine years of neglect, today we are now seeing the problems caused by the fact that those opposite failed to deliver to Victoria the infrastructure needed to actually help things get done. So you can be sure that, if a coalition government got back in, this would be one of the first things on the chopping block, because they want to make sure they can flog things off as quick as they can. It's in their DNA. It has always been in their DNA. With superannuation and Medicare, and everything you look at that we have done, they have done everything in their power to get rid of it and to spoil it. We are going to make sure that this vital piece of infrastructure that needs to be here for now and into the future remains here in our public's hands.

Debate adjourned.

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