Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the member for Kennedy and the very important amendments that he has brought to this House because it's all about making sure that country people get fair access to the NBN and telecommunications. I tell you what, if you want to talk about who is the heir to the legacy of the great 'Black Jack' McEwen of the Country Party days, look no further than the member for Kennedy. He is actually taking up the causes, as seen through these amendments, that the National Party should be taking up.

They should be the ones standing up and saying, 'We want a universal service obligation.' They are the ones that should be fighting for this. It's the National Party that should be fighting to keep the National Broadband Network in public ownership, because once these assets are sold—once the silverware is sold—you can't get them back. They give you a short-term sugar hit with some money in the coffers, but then it goes.

If you look at all of the asset sales that we've had through the years, both at a state and at a federal level, what is there to show for it now? In the days of COVID, the previous government was actually printing money. 'Quantitative easing' was what they called it when Australia did it for the first time. They actually just printed money. So, once these assets are sold, it's like selling the family silverware—it goes.

The member for Kennedy has brought these amendments to this House to make sure that country people get their fair share, and the member for Kennedy knows there is still a great divide in this country. We have the Great Dividing Range in the Central West of New South Wales. It's a physical barrier—they call it the 'sandstone curtain'—bit it's also a divide in terms of equality of services and equality of access to services in so many different ways. That's the great divide that exists in this nation—between city and country—and the member for Kennedy, the true heir of the legacy of Black Jack McEwen, comes to this place to ensure that country people get their fair share, and that they get their fair share out of the National Broadband Network.

I commend the member for Kennedy for bringing these amendments to this place. There is no point having universal service obligations if the NBN is actually sold off, because they wouldn't mean anything. We've seen that with Telstra. The government has spent billions on the NBN, and taxpayers need to get some return and benefit, and country people need to get return and benefit. That's what these amendments by the member for Kennedy are all about.

I look back to the glory days of the old Country Party. Sadly, those days are long gone. I grew up in a Country Party family, and it's no longer the party that I grew up with. I look at the member for Kennedy. He's lived it for decades, through state and federal politics. He's seen and lived what the Country Party used to be. So when you get today's coalition standing up and seemingly opposing legislation like this, which commits the NBN to public ownership, you just shake your head. As the member for Kennedy points out, the old-school Nats would be rolling in their graves if they knew what was going on with the current coalition. I think that's one of the reasons that current National Party members find the member for Kennedy so difficult to deal with: he reminds them of what the National Party used to be and the values that the National Party and the old Country Party used to have in the days of Black Jack McEwen and the days of Doug Anthony. Those days, sadly, are long gone, but, through amendments like these, which the member for Kennedy has brought to this place, that spirit lives on. The true spirit of the old Country Party lives on through the amendments that the member for Kennedy has brought to this place.

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