Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I do digress, Member for Solomon. I was alarmed to see 'FTTC' on the paperwork for the NBN, 'fibre to the curb'—curb, c-u-r-b. This is Australia. Kerb, which is the gutter along the—sideway; call it what you like, along the bitumen, out the front of your house, out on the street—is k-e-r-b. Somehow we get all this Americanisation thrust upon us. I appreciate they're our closest security partner, as they should be, and all the rest. But, when NBN and other companies are doing these sorts of programs and putting in place these sorts of glossy brochures, here's a tip: get it right. Spell it right. Use the Australian English version, not the one from America.

Now, as I said, this is a stunt from a desperate and failing government. It very much is. They want privatisation to be on the agenda for the next scare campaign. They did so in 2016. Who will ever forget the bombardment of advertisements, particular to younger families, about Mediscare. It worked a treat, unfortunately.

But they seem to forget their own shoddy record of privatisation. In the 1990s the Treasurer's idol, Prime Minister Paul Keating, privatised not only Qantas but also the Commonwealth Bank. You could argue that governments aren't there to run banks and airlines, and that may well be the case. But the government can't then try to bring on these scare campaigns at the eleventh hour, just prior to an election, so they can then allege—and they will, wait for it—that under the new provisions people will be paying more for the internet and people will be paying more to download and upload data. Let me tell you, this is what is coming. Our position as the coalition will be to oppose the bill. We're not proposing a sale. We are very much economic rationalists and economic adults, unlike those opposite. They want to just politicise everything, as they always do. We will take the responsible approach and will do it in a way that is best for the consumer and best for the Australian public.

Australians desperately need help with the cost-of-living crisis—a cost-of-living crisis brought about under Labor, a cost-of-living crisis that Labor did not even acknowledge or recognise until after the Voice vote was lost. They cared way more about a divisive referendum that cost $450 million and did nothing but create divisions within this country. They were not talking about the cost of living then; they seem to have caught up now, but sometimes it's too little, too late. They're running around scaring everybody with proposals such as this, scaring everybody by saying that they will manage the economy when in fact they have not. We'll take this bill in the usual way. It's a farcical approach from the Albanese government. If you look at their record in so many aspects, the Prime Minister has mentioned NBN only six times in the parliament this year, most recently on 3 July. That was quite some months ago. The sixth time was about how NBN's Sky Muster satellite was helping Indigenous communities, which was on 3 February 2024. Then all of a sudden, in the second-last week of sittings of federal parliament for 2024—who knows when the election is, but it is just around the corner—we find ourselves with a debate such as this plonked on the table and of course the urgency to debate it, the urgency to pass it and the urgency for Labor to pretend as though they're getting on board with policies that matter to Australians.

The policies that matter to Australians are the costs of living. The policies that matter to Australians are the prices of groceries. The policies that matter to Australians should be around the cost of fuel, because every time people go to the bowsers they're paying more and more. Every time they get their energy bills they're higher and higher. That is what the general public is talking about. That's the barbecue stopper. It's not the ownership of the NBN at the moment; it is making sure that, if they are in regional Australia, they have connectivity and they have mobile phones which actually have service. I mentioned yesterday the situation at Ardlethan and Kamarah, where farmers are being forced to climb silos—the Grinter family had to do just that to get reception, to get a bar on their phones—so they can make an urgent call because there is a medical crisis. This is simply not good enough.

When Labor brought out their latest round of mobile phone tower installations and infrastructure, they put them all in Labor electorates. They came to the election saying they would be far more transparent, far more accountable and far more honest in their dealings when it comes to funding initiatives, particularly in regional Australia, and what did they do? They had a spreadsheet which was all red, all Labor. I say shame on Labor just for that. It's all well and good if you're in a Labor seat and have got one of the mobile phone towers but not good enough if you're in a coalition seat. We hold more regional seats than Labor, and we missed out unfairly, unjustifiably. I don't know how Labor members can come to the dispatch box, come to the microphone and argue that they are being more accountable when it comes to funding such as that, particularly for regional areas. This is just another scare campaign. It's just Labor trying to get their house in order prior to the election. Shame on them.

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