Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Dunkley has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In resuming my comments on this bill I want to return to the issue of what is driving up housing affordability in this country. We face a severe supply shortage within our housing markets across Australia and that is estimated by the ANZ to be now in excess of 200,000 homes, which is more than we would build in any given year—and some—in a good year of economic activity, which would be around 140,000 homes. Contrary to some media claims, rising Australian house prices are the product of a supply bottleneck rather than a speculative bubble—in other words, due to policy failure rather than Mr Rudd’s rampant forces of capitalism.

There was much discussion recently about some statements made by the Reserve Bank governor when he was being verballed, I would say, into suggesting that there was some sort of housing bubble going on in the Australian markets. Recently, as a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, I had the opportunity to ask the Reserve Bank governor about his views on this topic. I put to him that it was the case, in fact, that we were facing a supply bottleneck rather than a housing bubble. He responded by saying this:

I think what you have put your finger on here is really the point … we need more dwellings … the price of a marginal block of land is quite high.

He also said:

… we ought to be prepared to examine the question of whether we have managed to make the supply price of the marginal dwelling higher than it really needs to be.

This is the issue that we have, and I am concerned because of the application of what is in effect a $2½ thousand tax—and this bill is silent on this but we understand from the government that a future bill might not be silent on it—on every single new dwelling that is developed in this country in order to lay the fibre through those dwellings as a mandatory government requirement. That cost would have to be borne by the developer, who would obviously pass it on to the person seeking to buy a house. In addition to rising interest rates, as a result of the government’s spending, they would also be faced, literally, with higher taxes as a result of this proposal by the government.

We need to remove the supply bottlenecks. That is what the Reserve Bank governor was saying. He was saying that if you want to do something about housing affordability in this country, the most important thing you need to do is address the issue of supply bottlenecks. Land supply restrictions, high taxes, development approval delays, poor infrastructure planning—all of these are the issues that I refer to. And it is worth noting that this government has still not ruled out the idea of a tax on the family home in terms of capital gains tax. The evidence of a risk of more taxes flagged in these measures is something of great concern for all those who are interested in being able to buy, rent or pay off a home in Australia.

While the rollout of the National Broadband Network is expected to take some time, and far more time than it was ever promised to take by the government when they were in opposition, the government have announced that the fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure will be required in new greenfield housing estates that receive planning approval after 1 July 2010. The department released a discussion paper on this issue in May 2009, and through the discussion paper the government sought the input of some key stakeholders. The main theme of the responses to that discussion paper was that there was a lack of detail and a lack of equity in terms of the cost to the development sector. Comments from the Master Builders Association included that, while they supported the policy of improving access to high-speed broadband for businesses and the community and for Australia’s future economic prosperity, they believed it should be achieved in an equitable and cost-effective way without causing unjustifiable hardship to industry, business or the individual household. Urban Taskforce Australia, which represents Australia’s most prominent property developers and equity financiers, said in its response that:

The government should be mindful of the impact that increases in developer costs—

such as those incurred as a consequence of the NBN rollout—

will have on land and housing affordability. The home buyer cannot always afford an increase in price due to a new development cost—

and, I would suggest, a new development tax.

The Australian Local Government Association, with whom I have a great deal of contact in one of my other portfolio responsibilities, represent more than 560 local government authorities. In their submission they said that, while long supporting the need for reasonably priced access for all Australians to these types of services, they had tempered their support. They said:

… the complexity of the issues raised in the consultation paper will present a major challenge in implementing the Greenfield development initiative by the nominated date of 1 July 2010.

Specifically, they warn, ‘The approach to greenfield developments needs to be given careful consideration and the policy implications need to be properly assessed and evaluated upfront.’ They say that the failure to deal with the complex issues that have been canvassed in the consultation paper ‘will result in inefficiencies and unintended consequences for numerous parties, including local governments’ and local communities. We see in this place day by day, in the failure of the government to think through and plan their own stimulus spending in relation to the Building the Education Revolution schools program, what those consequences are: waste, mismanagement, cost blow-outs and those sorts of issues. So these are the concerns that people are raising in relation to this program from the government.

The Urban Development Institute of Australia is a peak industry body representing more than 4,000 companies involved in the development industry. They include designers, builders and planners. It too has said it is supportive of improved telecommunications capabilities but it has indicated that there are a number of issues that will need to be addressed. The UDIA’s major issue is equity. It believes that there should be no difference in the treatment of new estates and retrofitting and that there should be an upfront capital charge for greenfield estates but a cost recovery approach elsewhere. It suggests that the developer should only be responsible for providing the trench for the pits and pipe. The NBN companies should then be responsible for the installation of the pits and the pipes, the backhaul, the head end and all of the cabling into the homes. This is, it says, the current practice for existing telecommunications infrastructure delivered into new estates.

They are basically saying that the development industry should not have to underwrite the government’s prospectus for their NBN—that they should not have to be shelling out in terms of reducing cost so that the Prime Minister can take what is already a fairly reckless proposal to the market, asking mums and dads to invest in this thing without one skerrick of detail. They are now saying that they want the development industry to somehow underwrite this proposal by putting in the cash upfront to pay for this scheme for them. Both the Urban Taskforce and the UDIA have raised concerns about the lack of detail in the consultation paper as to how the fibre to the premises will be implemented on the ground. This is something the government will need to address with industry bodies in the coming months as the plan is further developed.

The Housing Industry Association makes the same point I have been making throughout my remarks on this bill, which is the impact on housing affordability. It makes the observation that the consultation paper assumes a ‘business as usual’ approach where costs involved are comparable to the existing charges for the provision of other essential services such as water and sewerage. The HIA warns that this ignores the compounding effect of yet another cost that the new home purchaser will need to borrow against. It refutes the government’s proposition that adding another cost layer to housing construction is somehow justifiable. Quite simply, it makes the point that housing is heavily taxed by all three levels of government and the policy direction proposed in the discussion paper can only be viewed as yet another tax on home purchases. Investigations by the HIA have revealed that there are up to 20 indirect taxes that constitute up to 30 per cent of the final purchase price of a house and land package, a situation that serves to undermine housing affordability.

The HIA submission notes that there has been a 300 per cent increase in taxation on housing in the past decade, compared to the increase in the consumer price index of only 25 per cent in the same period. The point here is this: if the government were interested in housing affordability then the last thing it would do is put more taxes on housing. If the government were interested in housing affordability, it would be looking at ways to rein in the states in terms of how they tax land, treat land and provide infrastructure and would be seeking to ensure that, in return for the billions that we spend through state governments, they have a reform program. It has chosen not to do this. Instead, it has come before this place and put forward a proposal which would see even more taxes, not just at the state level but now at the federal level. If the government is serious about housing affordability, it should think again. (Time expired)

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to follow the member for Cook speaking about some important infrastructure related matters. Indeed, in relation to the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Network Information) Bill 2009, infrastructure is certainly one of the key issues in my electorate, which is in the outer north-western suburbs of Sydney. My electorate being on the fringes of one of our major cities, infrastructure is perhaps the single most important issue. Certainly there are large parts of my electorate that will benefit from an improvement in the national broadband network. However, I have to record that I share many of the concerns of members in this place about the government’s approach to the proposed national broadband network. While of course I support improved broadband services, I remain unconvinced that the proposal on the table from the government can or will deliver what they claim it will deliver in relation to broadband, especially at a reasonable price.

I have extensive dealings with Telstra and other suppliers in my job as a member of parliament, in attempting to get better outcomes for my constituents, and I see at the moment that the marketplace in my electorate tends to meet the demand that exists there at the current time in a pretty reasonable way. Most households within my electorate find that they can access broadband and can access improved levels of broadband when they push or when we are able to raise specific matters of concern with telecommunications carriers.

This is the first piece of legislation since the government’s NBN mark 2 announcement in April. I get confused about which proposal we are up to, because we had NBN 1, NBN 2 and NBN 3. I am sure there is going to be an NBN 4, an NBN 5 and an NBN 6, because what this legislation shows us is that the government really does not have a clear idea of how it is going to fund a national broadband network. The fact that the relatively minor cost in the original proposal is now up to something like $43 billion and the government has no clear idea about how it will raise most of it leads many members in this place to be extremely sceptical about whether the government can, in this time, raise the capital required from anywhere to fund such a massive expansion to a service.

I think it ought not to be the government’s role, necessarily, to seek to improve everybody’s broadband. The marketplace does work; it is working in my electorate. There is a role for government to expand services into areas where they may not be profitable, areas that a telecommunications company may not be able to reach. Certainly that was the original intention of getting the government involved in something like a national broadband network—that is, to extend the network out to those communities which could not be sustainably covered by the market or by a private telecommunications carrier. However, in this legislation we see that the government is seeking to massively fund a network where market forces already exist and in our cities, where a reasonable level of service—in fact, in some places a very good level of service—can be expected and sustained in a cost-effective way. Therefore, I have great concern about why the government is proposing an unprecedented amount of money—$43 billion—be spent on this kind of project. There is literally no detail on where it is going to find this money.

In 2008 a similar bill was considered and passed that required telecommunications carriers to provide specified infrastructure information to the Commonwealth. That was NBN mark 1. That requirement is another component of this bill. On 7 April this year the government announced that it had abandoned its election commitment for fibre-to-the node broadband and would establish a company to own and operate a fibre-to-the-premises broadband network with a potential price tag of $43 billion. This is perhaps what particularly mystifies many members of this place—why the government abandoned its election commitment for fibre-to-the-node broadband and came up with this very theoretical fibre-to-the-premises broadband network with an explosive price tag, with no clear idea of how it is to be funded. In light of these changed goalposts, there are provisions in this bill relating to the provision of information by utilities as well as telco carriers for the purposes of NBN mark 2.

It is interesting to note at this juncture that, prior to the last election, in announcing their fibre-to-the-node promise the government signalled very clearly to the Australian electorate that they would within the first six months of government have a tender up and running for a national broadband network. Of course, before the election we knew that that was a laughable proposition—absolutely laughable—and that was from long experience in government and knowing all of the practical elements of how you could possibly fund, propose and tender for a national broadband network. Then it went out to 12 months, so they initially broke their promise and their commitment to the Australian people that they would have a tender up and running within six months. Then it went to 12 months, and from there we saw the Prime Minister step in to cover the ineptitude of the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in this regard and propose a national broadband network mark 2 or 3—whichever one we are up to now. That comes with a $43 billion price tag in a situation where we do not really have a clear idea of how we are going to fund it.

This bill proposes particularly that information about carriers and utilities be provided not just to government for an implementation study but also to the National Broadband Network Co. or its potential subsidiaries or partners for any rollout of the network over the next 10 years. I have some concerns in relation to that, particularly in relation to what rollout will actually occur in the next 10 years. This bill was initially introduced into the Senate without consultation with key stakeholders. It is quite apparent that that did not occur, because this is quite an unrealistic model for how to provide a national broadband network. Of course, the reason you consult and seek the information, the experience and the know-how of those companies in the market that provide these valuable services is that you avoid the problems that we see in this legislation. If you do not consult with those who know how to do it, I do not accept the proposition that the government knows better simply because it is the government. I know that members opposite often say that the government has a superior way of doing things, but what we see in relation to this legislation is another sloppy and poor set of consultative approaches, which means that we have an unrealistic scheme in front of us and we all have grave concerns about how it will roll out. The government certainly has proved incapable, in the 18 months since its election, of meeting any of its time lines in relation to the National Broadband Network mark 1or mark 2, and we know that mark 3 is on the way. The development of this legislation is yet another example of the government’s absolute inability to manage such a massive project.

Thinking about some of the problems in this legislation, in particular there are some concerns that the NBN mark 2 is going to go the same way as the first NBN proposal. The bill for taxpayers is already growing. There is an almost $2 million annual salary for the CEO of the NBN Co., who currently does not do anything. My advice is that an office exists, with all kinds of staff who are producing nothing at the moment. If this were the marketplace or a company that had to provide a service or a good it would be completely unsustainable. But, because the government and, let us be honest, the taxpayers are footing the bill, this tragedy can continue to unfold while the government dithers in relation to providing something practical to people out there.

If you look at the stakeholders who submitted to the inquiry of the Senate Environment, Communications and the Arts Legislation Committee into the bill during the public hearing that was in Canberra, you will see some of that on the record in submissions from Telstra, Optus, the Energy Networks Association, the Business Council of Australia, the Australasian Railway Association, the Water Services Association of Australia, Integral Energy, the Privacy Commissioner and Unwired. The evidence to the committee highlighted a number of concerns about the proposed measures in the bill. There were serious concerns about protection of information and ensuring that nobody had a competitive advantage as a result of this legislation being passed and companies being required to provide their information to the National Broadband Network Co. That is a valid concern, which I certainly share with many of those companies. We ought to note in this place that it is a bad precedent for government to require all of the current providers in the marketplace to provide their information to a government owned entity which then, in effect, can go out into that marketplace and compete with financial backing that is completely and utterly out of their league. If there were to be a $43 billion injection into broadband in this country, it would be such a massive market distortion that you would have to consider very carefully the viability of many of these other operations. The only saving grace in relation to this legislation is that everyone here knows that there is not going to be a $43 billion network put into the marketplace, so we can all rest easier.

The concerns of the stakeholders, in particular, in relation to this legislation focused around the consultation, as I have spoken about, and immunities. I accept that that is another important issue. Under this bill, civil penalties apply for carriers and utilities that do not provide accurate information. Taking this up for one moment, given that many utilities are required to provide information on old assets or assets that they express concern about, their potential exposure is an issue that I accept. They have exposure to penalty under this bill for inaccuracy in information that they are required to provide, when the information that we are talking about could perhaps be used in a way that would be unacceptable to many people in this place. If there are errors in the information or if there is a problem with the quality of the information then that entity ought not necessarily be subject to civil penalties. I think that is a very valid point. It will create a lot of uncertainty out in the marketplace and could potentially put a very onerous burden upon many of those companies.

In addition to those concerns, utilities raised with the Senate committee the issues of the ongoing costs associated with the provision of the information that they are compelled under this legislation to provide the government. Many industry sectors are compelled to comply with various government regulations—I had a series of people in my office today in relation to education—and I think this is another valid concern. There will be costs associated with the provision of this information. If we pass this legislation in this place and in the other place then potentially the cost of the service provision of broadband in Australia will be passed on to consumers, who will end up paying more because of this regulation. That is very important. Not only will the government not have their broadband network up and running—while they have a CEO being paid a big salary in an office and a pie in the sky scheme to raise $43 billion of capital—they will also be increasing the costs of the providers of the existing services to consumers. So I find it very difficult to see how that is a better situation, and certainly those concerns appear to be valid.

In relation to this bill there are also many concerns from industry, and I think they have raised some valid points. Of course, we are all in a heightened state of awareness about the importance of broadband to a modern economy. Certainly there have been many bold claims made in this place, in question time and other times, about how far behind the rest of the world we are. I do not accept that we are as far behind the rest of the world as some people claim. Indeed, there has been a fairly decent provision of telecommunications infrastructure, especially during the lifetime of the last government. I think that is something that has not been well understood and that has been exploited by the government, particularly in relation to the last election and the wild, unrealistic and unsustainable promises made to the electorate about what they could deliver. Of course, once they were elected all of those wild and unsustainable promises fell by the wayside. It is quite clear that they are treating taxpayers with contempt and putting at risk millions of dollars in relation to this legislation.

In its submission to the Senate committee inquiry on this bill, the Business Council joined many commentators and organisations, including the Productivity Commission, who believe that the National Broadband Network does need a thorough cost-benefit analysis. The Business Council of Australia said:

Without a proper consideration and estimation of costs and benefits, it is difficult to see that the government has provided sufficient justification for the proposed legislation.

I think that is another very important point: there is no cost-benefit analysis in relation to the National Broadband Network mark 1 or mark 2. It appears a complete and utter anachronism to say that we are going to spend that much money on establishing a new broadband network without having done an analysis of whether that is going to provide the kind of benefit that we are seeking. Certainly I accept that there may be a benefit for those regional and rural communities who struggle to get access to many of these services, and that is something that I think is a proper function for the government to consider.

The fact that this has not been done clearly and demonstrably exposes the government’s lack of accountability in relation to the National Broadband Network. Having this financial commitment without any cost-benefit analysis ought to alarm everybody in Australia, especially at a time when we are in such grave financial crisis and when the government is already borrowing heavily in order to fund so many of its other promises and its ongoing stimulus measures. It is also important to note that all except $2 billion of the budget of the National Broadband Network will be funded by debt—and the government still does not have a clear idea where it is going to raise that debt from. I think that ought to concern taxpayers in particular.

Speaking on behalf of my constituents today, I feel like anything that would deliver a better outcome for the outer suburbs of our major cities and regional and rural areas would produce support from the opposition. However, when a model for such a major and important piece of national infrastructure is put forward by the government with no clear plan as to how they will fund it and no clear idea about how they will deliver it, and when the government have an ongoing record of failure and mismanagement in meeting their own deadlines then I think it is quite proper for the opposition in this place to retain grave concerns about the operation of this proposed National Broadband Network.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will speak briefly to this legislation, so if there is a following speaker then I note that I will not be here in 20 minutes time. I notice that the previous speaker left it right until the end to arrive in this place.

I support the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Network Information) Bill 2009. But I do believe that this is a test for the government, partly for some of the reasons that have been enunciated by the opposition. It is a test of its commitment to a piece of infrastructure for the future. There has been a lot of money spent on, and promised to, roads, rail and other pieces of important infrastructure, but there is no more important infrastructure for this nation, either globally, domestically, regionally or in any context that people want to put it in, than equitable access to broadband services.

This legislation allows for information to be gathered and shared between various companies so that a proposal can be built up, with some existing infrastructure and other pieces of information from the various technological players, to allow a national broadband network to become a reality. This piece of infrastructure—broadband infrastructure—in my view is the most important piece of infrastructure that we can talk about. The government will be judged on the delivery of the services that it says it intends to deliver.

Broadband services delivered in an equitable fashion with equitable access negate distance being a disadvantage for people who live in the country. That will mean an incredible boost for regional development. Some of those people have equity of access at the moment, and we have to ensure that, where possible, that equity of access and equity of price is made available into the future. So I am very supportive of what the government is trying to do because I think that, for the first time, it actually looks at getting a service that will benefit not only individuals but also businesses. This is important because then, in a sense, you can run a business from anywhere in Australia. It will remove the need for the city concentration of businesses that we currently have. There are many other benefits of doing this. I am sure all country members have examples of international businesses being run from farm homesteads. Those businesses are using this global technology to access the world. Location becomes less and less relevant if in fact you can gain access to high-speed broadband at equitable prices. So it negates distance being a disadvantage of living in the country.

It is also absolutely critical, in my view, given some of the medical costs out there that government is dealing with—the numbers of doctors, dentists, specialists et cetera and the educationalists that are required in this modern global economy—that we are able to access high-speed broadband to deliver some of those educational and health facilities. It is not impossible. In fact, it is happening in parts of the world now where specialists are actually attending operations via the internet while they are thousands of kilometres away. Their expertise can be utilised at these critical times. That can apply to the education area as well. It can also apply to the climate change debate. There is a mass movement of people flying to see each other to do business. The higher the internet speeds, the more in-time access will be available. A lot of that travel will become history and a lot of the work will be done via the broadband network. So for country Australians this particular proposal from the government is very important.

As I said at the start, I think this is a test for the government. There have been a lot of distractions. I congratulate the government on the way it has addressed the economic crisis. But, in terms of substantive legacies, there will be no greater one than a national broadband service that actually works and provides some of the services that I talked about a moment ago. In that sense, the jury is very much out. Some of the issues that have been raised by the opposition are legitimate, but some of them are political issues as well. I think the government really has to stick to its knitting on this. If it has just pulled a number out of the sky and thinks that it can impose that number and not deliver on those service announcements, the nation will judge it accordingly. In my view, this sort of infrastructure is more important than any road or rail that we can talk about. I am not demeaning those pieces of infrastructure but I think that, in the development of a nation of this size, if we can get this right we will go a long way towards getting our place in global communications right.

We have seen examples before in this parliament of where grand ideas have fallen foul. We saw with the previous government, for instance, the inland rail concept that was promoted for many years—and which still is promoted by Everald Compton, who is a great Australian in my view. The previous government led that concept along, saying it was one of those nation-building concepts that had great potential for the future. Various studies were done. Some of the studies indicated that maybe the freight that was available to go on that particular route was not what some people had expected. That debate is still open. The point I am making is that governments who continually make suggestions, particularly about nation building, will be judged if they do not eventually deliver on some of those things. I think that the National Broadband Network is one of those things on which this current government will be judged.

Parallel to this piece of legislation, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, will be in my electorate next Monday. We are having a forum. I have invited a range of political players of various political persuasions from the north-west in New England—mayors, general managers and others—interested in the national broadband rollout to come to a forum. I thank the minister for accepting the invitation. That forum is not going to be a political forum. It is going to be a forum where information is garnered from the minister. It will give the minister a good opportunity to outline the program in a regional context with, I hope, some specifics for the New England and north-west area and on the timetable that the minister sees for the National Broadband Network rollout.

The issue of equity and commercial viability has been raised by the opposition. The previous speaker made note of it. I note that in the second reading amendment the opposition have moved—which really does not mean much because they are not declining to support the bill—one of the phrases concerns me. They talk about a cost-benefit analysis of the National Broadband Network. The point they make is that the project—presumably the $43 billion National Broadband Network that the government is proposing—may not be commercially viable. This concept of commercial viability in the nation-building context interests me. I spend a bit of time in the west of New South Wales, and I guess a lot of people spend a bit of time in some of the more remote parts of Australia. The little town of Lowther, for instance, which is not in my electorate but which is a town that I have some personal contact with, would never have received electricity if a commercial viability criterion had been imposed upon it. I urge the coalition to revisit some of the wording of this amendment, because it smells of a context from a few years ago where if something was not commercially viable then it did not happen. What is viable for commerce, what is viable for government, what the public sector should provide to the people and what the role of government is in the provision of those services starts to be questioned.

We have been down the road where the provision of services to the greatest number of people was done most efficiently and at the lowest unit cost. If you could put them in a feedlot, that is how you would deliver services most effectively. The former government tended down that pathway. I remember at one time suggesting that, if you put them in a high-rise feedlot—which in fact was done in some of our cities—and used gravity to some advantage, you were being even more cost effective in the feedlot mechanism that those people were being pressured into. I think there have been aspects of competition policy that have actually driven that context. I think some of the speakers coming up might be able to explain to me what the coalition actually mean by criticising the government over the commercial viability issue. Does it mean that we provide services to people only where a commercial business would garner a commercial return or does it mean some sort of commercial viability involving government policy, which is something different? If we still have remnants of this feedlot mentality as being the only way to deliver services in an economic fashion to the greatest number of people, that tends to rule out country people. They live in distant areas. In a lot of cases they are in remote locations, in some cases they are small and in most cases they tend to be weak in their political numbers. It is something that government really has to address if they are serious about creating an environment where more people go to the country rather than fewer. The policy mix we have had in the past—and still have to a certain extent—articulates that we want people to go to the country, but the economic pressures are that the country goes to the city.

This particular piece of infrastructure gives the government an opportunity to reverse the old paradigm on which it is more cost effective to operate a business in the city compared with the country because of the factor of distance. If we can get this right—and right, in my view, is to get the cost right so that it is equity of access to similar technologies—so that the country location will have a comparative advantage over the city location, the consequences not only may be in the performance of business but may alleviate some of the pressures on cities. You can see the debacle in New South Wales at the moment where you have got all these urban transport pressures and greater demand for more highways and motorways to get people in and out of a congested city. Here is an opportunity to break that nexus of the concentration of people in a limited number of centres and this dependence on so-called commercial viability.

Another instance which occurred in telecommunications was the sale of Telstra—this thread of commercial viability and the business sector always running more effectively without government involvement. That might be right to a certain extent, but there are people on the margin—and they happen to be in the country—who will miss out under that regime. We saw it in the privatisation of Telstra. The previous government, in conjunction with the National Farmers Federation whose president at the time was Peter Corish, said that equity of access to telephone and broadband services for country people would be delivered by the legislation and that a letter existed that would support equity of access for those services. Senator Barnaby Joyce fell for the three-card trick. I remember the day because I was at the Senate doors as I had heard that the National Farmers Federation president at the time was going to make an announcement. I was certain that it was going to be a positive one. I was absolutely shocked when he fell for the three-card trick and announced that he had been given a guarantee that these particular commitments would be enshrined in legislation. Those things did not happen. Senator Joyce voted for it. Nothing was in the bill and no letter was ever sighted. People in country areas are still suffering from that decision. I supported Senator Conroy and Lindsay Tanner at that time because of their opposition to the sale. I am supportive of what they are attempting to do, particularly Senator Conroy’s attempts, with the National Broadband Network, but the eyes of all Australians—and very much country Australians—are firmly fixed on the language of these arrangements. People want delivery.

In conclusion, I highlight the point that this is the most important piece of infrastructure that this parliament will talk about during this term, and probably through many terms. It is the infrastructure that equalises all Australians in a sense because the costs of living in the city actually give the country locations a real advantage. All the other factors—distance, remoteness et cetera—augur that country locations will not be advantaged. So I encourage the government to get it right because its implications for other policy areas could be as significant as the delivery of this invaluable service to all Australians.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Network Information) Bill 2009. This bill amends part 27A of the Telecommunications Act. Part 27A enables the Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy to require telecommunications carriers to give information to the Commonwealth about their telecommunications networks. This bill before the House removes the sunset clause which made most of part 27A inoperative after 26 May 2009, expands the class of firms that have to provide information to include utilities and changes the purpose to which the information can be put. So we are, if you like, reheating the old part 27A because time has lapsed. And, really, that is the story of the National Broadband Network—time has lapsed.

I would like to go back over a bit of history now. The National Broadband Network fibre-to-the-node was an ALP election promise. It would have involved significant modification of Telstra’s network rather than a whole new network. The main changes were the linking of residential and business premises with the local exchange. The proposal would have seen the bundled copper wire that runs from the exchange to the node, which is the access point near the premises, replaced with optic fibre—thus enabling much faster access speeds. In order for proponents to submit costed proposals, they needed information about existing telecommunications infrastructure. They were asked to provide this voluntarily, which of course they were reluctant to do. The original Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Bill was the mechanism by which they were forced to do this.

Six proposals were received by the government’s extended deadline of 26 November 2008. In December, Telstra announced that it had been excluded from the process, because its proposal did not explain how it would involve small and medium enterprises in building the NBN. In January 2009, the minister announced he had received the report from his expert panel. He declined to publish the full report, but the extract that he did publish said the proposals were underdeveloped and did not provide value for money. On 7 April this year the government terminated the request for proposal process and announced that it would establish a company that would build, own and operate a wholesale fibre-to-the-home network. Ninety per cent of homes, schools and workplaces would be connected with either land based or satellite wireless services.

The story loses coherence at this point, courtesy of the bumbling minister, who is now, I feel, caught in a trap entirely of his own making. The minister is not sure of the legal arrangements through which the company that he has announced will either acquire assets or operate the business. We know that the Commonwealth will make the initial investment in the company and might issue retail bonds, but the extent of public and private equity is not known. The Commonwealth will be a majority shareholder but only for five years after the network is built and fully operational. A plan of action was set out by the minister in April when the company, NBN Co Ltd, was established—though it may of course change its name. Three months later the executive chairman was announced and a few weeks later the board was announced. In April 2009, the minister released a discussion paper on proposals for regulatory reform, including the separation of Telstra’s retail and network arms. In July the minister sought more views on a number of matters, including how the new network should be regulated. An implementation study is needed but a lead adviser is required to provide the government with information around network design and operating arrangements. A five-month tender process to appoint the lead adviser resulted in McKinseys and KPMG being appointed in August. The tender process was secret.

In this timeline we have a long and tedious history. It is now 12 months since the network was supposed to be built and well and truly on its way to being up and running in the interests particularly of rural and regional constituents. With every step that the minister takes, he seems to have to ask and pay for advice from consultants. He needs to ask what regulatory environment his company should be operating in. He needs to ask about the terms, about the equity and about what the arrangements that should surround the new network would look like. And every step of the way is resulting in more and more delays. Meanwhile, the issue of regional black spots has meant that the government has issued a consultation paper and another request for tender. Responses to this have just closed.

The minister has found a friend, though, in the Tasmanian government, whose proposal to the 2008 request for proposal process the expert panel apparently approved of—even though we cannot see the advice from that expert panel. Tasmanian NBN, a subsidiary of NBN Co, has been established and will manage the rollout of the network in Tasmania, using Aurora Energy—a company wholly owned by the Tasmanian government. The legislative environment in which NBN Co will operate has not been set. The issues of how fibre networks should be set out to greenfields developments has not been resolved, though the minister has established yet another stakeholder group to advise on policy development on this issue.

I have seen estimates, probably some 12 months ago, that the tab for the minister’s professional advice alone has hit $10 million. Questions remain. Who will actually own the NBN? Will it be the government or third parties? If we want those third parties to invest, they need information, They need to know how long the government will stay on board as an investor. Five years after the completed rollout? But how is that defined? Can the government confiscate Telstra’s network without compensation? How much might such compensation cost? Investors need certainty, reliability and information—and they do not have any of those things from this government.

The disappointing thing to me is that the appalling way in which the government has handled the NBN has detracted from the genuinely good news story about what it actually promises and how it could change lives, improve the way we work and live and, importantly for my constituents, bring opportunities to regional Australia that did not previously exist—for example, high-definition teleconferencing. Telepresence systems mean state-of-the-art teleconference from home, without sacrificing the productivity or personal interaction. Satellite communities built far away from city centres have been talked about for a long time but there has never really been the technology to truly support them. This could now become a reality. There are far-reaching implications for rural and regional Australia, struggling as we are with the drought. Our farming systems are changing and we need diversification of our economic base. For example, we have agricultural experts who have hands-on experience and an observatory, if you like, built all around them. With the interactive technology and tools that new technology such as internet protocol TV would bring, we could overcome the disadvantages of distance and bring the jobs we need to a very smart rural sector.

Elderly people in their own homes would benefit from a health-monitoring system that would spare precious resources for local hospitals—and God knows we need that in the state of New South Wales. I know the minister is an ardent fan of e-health, but we have to get the system built and we have to get it built all over Australia and not leave out vital towns just because they have a population of 1,000 or less according to the arbitrary criteria that this government has set. The announcement sounded great in April earlier this year, until you looked at the fine print. In my electorate alone, there are 17 towns that would miss out entirely and, really, they figured nowhere in the government’s announcement. They just did not count.

The other factor, of course, is cost. The Rudd government treats this exercise like it does all others—a huge price tag, poorly calculated. It is carried away with its own sense of self-importance, so an extra few million dollars is just a bump in the road. After the grand announcement that the NBN was costed at $43 billion, we saw in slightly smaller print that the government contribution was just $4.7 billion, about 11 per cent. The government should know that, while it willingly writes out cheques for multimillion dollar sums, the private sector follows the normal rules of probity, value for money and return on investment. Without those things, it is reluctant to invest. Hence the problem the minister now faces, which is the unenthusiastic response to his announcement. So, at the moment, we are in a state of limbo where, unfortunately, we are set to remain.

According to the government, it will take eight years to build the network to 90 per cent of homes at speeds up to 100 megabytes per second. But this is not an ironclad guarantee or even a rock-solid commitment; it is little more than an ambitious goal, something we are just aiming for. Contrast this with a recent report, Navigating the path to Australia’s NBN, by telecommunications analyst Christian Guerra, which predicted that the rollout would not begin until 2011 and would cover just 50 per cent of homes by 2017—it might get to 90 per cent by 2025. There is little hope for regional Australia in that sad time line.

I want to mention cybersecurity risks associated with the NBN, because awareness of cybercrime is severely lacking around the country. The government, as I have said, plans to start the NBN in Tasmania; however, there has been little talk about security risks that might be associated with the network. The National Manager, Australian Federal Police High Tech Crime Centre, Neil Gaughan, spoke to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications last week in a public hearing on cybercrime. Mr Gaughan pointed out that we need to ensure that the security and the resilience of the NBN is quite strong. He warned that there have been ‘incidents in the recent past’ when it comes to large Australian companies being targeted for cyberespionage.

ASIO, in their submission to the inquiry into cybercrime, also noted:

Terrorists use the Internet for a variety of purposes —including communications, propaganda, recruitment and reconnaissance of targets. (t is also feasible that terrorists or extremists may engage in malicious cyber activity that would exploit Australia’s reliance on Information Communications Technology to significantly disrupt services, cause casualties and/or inflict economic harm.

This is a concerning feature of the interconnected cyberenvironment that we live and work in today. The Australian Institute of Criminology noted in their submission to the committee:

The next wave of technology-enabled security threats will be targeted attacks aimed at specific organisations or individuals within enterprises. Organisations in the financial services industries and their top executives will be targeted more heavily than others … with financial gain being the ultimate goal.

The percentage of Australians targeted by cybercrime is quite large and is on the increase. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, over 5.8 million Australians were exposed to cyberscams in the 12 months prior to the Personal fraud 2007 survey. That information is slightly dated but it is the most up-to-date that we have. Personal fraud as measured by the ABS involved people receiving and viewing or reading an unsolicited invitation, request, notification or offer designed to obtain their personal information or money or otherwise obtain a financial benefit by deceptive means. Of those who received a fraudulent request, 5.7 per cent—329,000 people—became victims by responding to the scam, by supplying personal information, money or both or by seeking more information. This equates to a victimisation rate of two per cent, which has been rising rapidly since that study was conducted. The coalition strongly supports the AFP’s concern that security must be at the centre of the NBN initiative as cybercrime rises. That involves two aspects: the location of the assets, the physical infrastructure under this network, where they will be located, who will know where they are located and who should know; and the obvious interruption to traffic on the network were such cybercrime to take place and the security of the use of that network for government agencies, individuals, industry and business.

Back to the specifics of this bill: the main changes are, as I said earlier, to expand the class of firms that can be required to give information to include utilities and to change the purpose for which they are used. The changes sought by this bill were originally introduced into the Senate on 25 June 2009 and were referred to a Senate committee. The coalition has a problem with the government’s approach, in that it was done without consultation with stakeholders. I am told that some had no idea of its content when they were contacted by the media for comment. Thankfully, the Senate inquiry gave stakeholders the opportunity to comment, and they declared concerns about consultation time lines in the bill. The information utilities were obliged to supply, even if they do not hold records, the costs these utilities would incur. Further concerns were expressed about provisions permitting disclosure of information to the NBN for 10 years, unlike provisions relating to the implementation study which sunset in June 2010.

There are, therefore, serious questions about why the minister has been given such broad long-term powers in this bill and whether they are really needed, given that we are only at the implementation study stage and beyond that there may be no need for commercially sensitive information relating to the operation of the final NBN to be disclosed. I therefore support the amendments moved in this place by the member for Dunkley in connection with this bill and I commend the comments that he has made regarding those amendments.

I also express my grave reservations about the way this government is managing the National Broadband Network. It will cost $43 billion to build the network, but the network has not been costed. The expert panel apparently was never asked to make a return-on-investment calculation. It reported in secret. The government will not release the panel’s deliberations. The government itself is putting in just $4.7 billion, but the option of putting in more is hinted at. After all, we are in tough times. We have to spend our way out. It is just money. Everything will work out down the track. Do not bother justifying expenditure other than relying on the feel-good factor. The NBN is good, the Liberals are bad, faster internet delivered to more people is the right thing to do and anyone who stands in the way are a bunch of spoilsports!

That is the impression I have from this government about the National Broadband Network, underlined by their appalling disregard for the effect that that network will not be able to take in rural and regional Australia—because the 10 per cent of constituents who I represent would all be in that excluded 10 per cent. There have been some vague promises of wireless satellite but nothing definite has been said—no costings, no allocation, no commitment in terms of time line. The point will come where this government’s approach and rationale will be proved incompetent. Every Australian who waits and hopes for a better broadband network to service their needs deserves so much better.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures No. 1) Bill 2009, I back up my colleague the member for New England. I was reading my original speech on this bill, and I quoted with very great regret the senator from Queensland Barnaby Joyce, who said that he would oppose the bill. I deeply regret that my National colleagues seem to now represent the city interests. If Barnaby Joyce sells us out and votes against this, it will probably be the last gasp for the National Party, one that was set on 16 August 2005.

There are only three members now who represent the National Party in this House. The LNP is a formal affiliate of the Liberal Party of Australia, so it is actually the Liberal Party now. I deeply regret it—I do not criticise the honourable senator from Queensland for voting for it but in a sense I also very much criticise him for voting for it! But when you live in a party you have got to toe the party line and not do simply what it pleases you to do. At some stage you have to eventually make a decision as to whether you sell your soul or whether you sell your party. It is very regrettable that one has to say that in this place, but that is the situation as far as any member representing rural Australia goes.

The proposal to roll out broadband, giving access to virtually all Australians, is a wonderful proposal. It is like the bitumen roads which took people from the outback. It used to take us three days to go on our annual holidays to Brisbane from Cloncurry, a journey that can be done in a single day now because of the building of bitumen roads. We did not think it was possible that bitumen roads could be built out to our areas. When that very great man John McEwan instituted his beef roads scheme, as it was originally called, and later on the developmental roads scheme, one did not think it was possible to create this great network infrastructure of communication for Australia called sealed roads. But that is exactly what he did. I did not think that in my lifetime I would ever see the road sealed from Cloncurry to Brisbane—that seemed inconceivable. I thought that if we fought really hard we could get it sealed from Cloncurry to Townsville but we would never get it sealed the back way straight to Brisbane. But we did thanks to that very great man.

The people of Australia have been the beneficiaries of that. Great minds have opened up in the Mount Isa-Cloncurry area. The cattle industry has increased its numbers dramatically throughout those areas as a result. We took a survey when I was a minister in the Queensland government—and I think this is very relevant to the bill before the House—on what was the most important thing that had happened or that could happen for people in rural Australia. We were hoping that the survey would say the most important thing was water development and irrigation, but that was not what came back. What came back was bitumen roads that enabled our cattle to move from an area that was dry, because people have a concept of drought that all of New South Wales would be in drought or all of Queensland would be in drought. That rarely happens. There are areas where we have had excessive rainfall and there will be areas where we have drought. That is a condition that we have to live with. But we were not able to move our cattle previously, except at very great expense, on the dirt roads, until the coming of the beef road scheme, which put some 2,000 kilometres of sealed road into North Queensland.

I remember the most famous man in American political history and the most popular man in American political history, Huey Long. When there were just 11 bridges in Louisiana, he built 300 bridges. When there were 300 kilometres of sealed road, he built 2,500 kilometres of sealed road. The people loved Huey. It was in the time of the Great Depression, when people loved having a job. They greatly revered a man who had given them a job and an opportunity to buy a decent feed while most of the rest of the country was on the ropes.

Broadband is a very similar concept. There are problems that we can address, and I thank a member of my staff, Anthony Lagana, publicly in this place. One: the main problem is distance from exchange. Two: if no exchange exists, then we have to use wireless mobile coverage, and the cost is almost triple, with a reduction in speed and download volumes. Three: where there is no exchange and no wireless we have to use satellite. Again, the price is triple, with very low speeds and very low download volumes.

Four: people who cannot use landline broadband are disadvantaged by the cost of using wireless and satellite. Five: wireless is only as good as the reception from the phone towers, and that can be very iffy in areas that I represent, where we have the great mountain ranges of North Queensland—Mount Bartle Frere towers 5½ thousand feet above sea level and, unlike the Snowy Mountains, where you have high country, this is not high country; these are just spectacular mountains that rise off a coastal plain and go straight up into the clouds. In that situation we have enormous difficulties getting reception. Six: satellite is good until there is cloud cover. Those of us who live in country areas know that problem only too well. Speeds of downloads are limited. Seven: when there is a problem with satellite it can take one or two months to get a repair person out, because of the remoteness.

Dennis Faye is a grazier from Torrens Creek with a gifted intellect who has been without coverage for over two months. I think it is now into its third month. When Telstra’s sale was discussed in this place, we were told in our party room again and again that there would be a universal service obligation. Two or three of us—that was all—had the temerity to speak up. We said: ‘What ridiculous rubbish. Do you really think that a government is going to enforce a universal service obligation on some poor person working and living in Julia Creek or, even worse, living outside Julia Creek? That is not going to happen.’ And here is the proof positive. They are not going to pay for a repairman to go out to a single consumer who lives 70 or 80 kilometres south of Prairie or Torrens Creek. That is not the real world. That is not going to happen. Here is a specific example that it is not happening and is not going to happen. We have had something like seven centres that have been out for two and three days since Telstra was sold off.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They’re not commercially viable.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is correct: because they are not commercially viable. When you move into a free-market regime, say your prayers if you are in the outskirts of cities. Do not think this is confined to country areas. We are talking about semisuburban areas. They are suffering greatly. One community in my area which is most certainly a stone’s throw from Cairns—it is about 20 minutes in a car—was without telephones for two weeks. In my nearly 35 years in parliament, until Telstra was sold I could only think of one example where the telephones were out for more than seven hours. It was because there were Telstra workers at every community point throughout North Queensland. They could get there quickly, assess the problem quickly and fix it up quickly. Since then we have had seven centres that have been out for two weeks—including half of Innisfail, a town of 20-odd thousand people.

I go back to this paper we have prepared. We thank Anthony for his preparation. Eight: cheap deals end up costing consumers a lot more because of the download limits. Customers should be made more aware and more informed by the provider. BigPond is probably one of the providers that creates the most problems with extra costs. When customers reach their download limit on a cheap plan of, say, $29.95 a month, the extra cost to them is very great. No matter who the provider delivering the broadband is, the exchange and lines are maintained by Telstra. Most internet problems are Telstra issues. Telstra is a privatised concern and, as I said before, they simply do not get the repairs done. So whilst these things are marvellous and, I am sure, will have great benefits for the cities, I view with extreme scepticism how valuable these services will be to us.

I am country born, from the little town of Cloncurry, which has a very limited local library. We did not have many outlets, particularly intellectual outlets. I was a prolific reader, as are many people who come from little towns such as the one I come from. The first purchase in my life when I got a little bit of money together was my rifle. My second purchase was Encyclopaedia Britannica, for which I shopped around because I could not afford to buy it new. I got it second-hand. They were very well worn copies because they were the internet of the period. It gives you some idea of the very great value.

I remember from my own home area a gentleman named Mr Dave Christerson. He started with absolutely nothing. They used to say he sold the cattle down at Cloncurry before he bought them up at Kajabbi. He did not even have a horse; he had a saddle. He would climb on the mail and go up to Kajabbi and then buy the cattle that he had already sold. I think a lot of the hedge fund managers in Sydney would understand his operations well! He became a very successful cattleman, but the first thing he bought when he had a quid—I remember it very well; he had some very pretty daughters!—was a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. That opened the doors for us bush kids to see and to access a wider world, and broadband can provide exactly the same advantages for us if we are given it and if we are given it in such a way that it becomes a genuine service that we can afford and that we will get repaired when breakdowns occur.

In my previous speech, which emphasised the sale of Telstra more than broadband but took in broadband, I made reference to what would happen if Telstra were privatised and we then had a change of technology. I remember raising this with great aggression in our party room. Looking back on the years, I can only remember twice in my seven years in the party room where anyone who said anything in the party room was ever taken any notice of—only two issues in seven years with 20 or 30 meetings a year—so I did not lose anything by not being admitted to the party room. Looking back on it, it was an utter waste of time.

I think it is an important point to make to the House. I also said on the issue of Telstra that we have changes of technology. I owned a cattle station for a couple of decades up in the never-never land. We were about 230 kilometres from the nearest town; and, much as I love Croydon, it is a pretty rough definition of ‘town’, with 100 people. We lived right out in the middle of nowhere. But I saw four changes of technology there. The copper wire did not originally reach us, but it reached some of our neighbouring neighbours—neighbours to our neighbours—so we saw copper wire transmission of information, a telephone if you like. The copper wire was replaced by DRCS technology, and that was replaced in our case by satellite. We did not have access to DRCS but some of our neighbours did. Satellite was the third technology, and the fourth technology that came in was HCRC. There were four entirely separate changes of technology in the space of about 15 or 16 years.

Then, the government simply told Telstra—which was an instrumentality that they owned—that they would provide this service to all Australians, including those Australians who lived 200 kilometres from a town. That is what the government said. The government did not cost Treasury anything, so all we had to do was to wedge the minister or wedge the leader and put a lot of pressure on him, and then he would simply tell Telstra to do it and it would happen. But if Telstra is privatised, you cannot do that. You cannot tell Telstra to do it if they are an independent body. They would tell you to go jump.

The implications of this are that you would have to ask Treasury for a handout; whereas before we could say, ‘It’s our right’ and the government could direct their instrumentality to provide the service. These wonderful people who come into this place—in one speech they will tell us about justice and in the next speech they will tell us about markets. You know, they will tell us about how our free markets are going to save and rescue us all. Have a look at Woolworths and Coles and then tell me about free markets. Have a look at the transport industry in Australia and then tell me about free markets. Have a look at the mass media in Australia and its ownership and then tell me about free markets. As I have said on many occasions in this place, their problem is: their mummies and daddies did not get them to play Monopoly when they were young. If their mummies and daddies had got them to play Monopoly, they would know that when you own all of the utilities you have got six times the income!

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They were playing Snakes and Ladders!

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think there were other things that were played, but I will not go into that. We are in an invidious situation in non-big-city Australia. I am not saying rural Australia, because I represent the environs of Cairns, which is a big city of 250,000 people. I represent the environs, and they are going to be treated very, very shabbily, I can tell you. Because of their problem—with high mountains that just rise off the coastal plains straight into the clouds—we cannot get the sort of service delivery that can be easy in certain other situations. And we are not Robinson Crusoe in this. There are areas outside of Melbourne that are exactly the same, and there are most certainly areas surrounding Sydney that are in exactly the same situation as we are. When we get breakdowns in broadband, they will not be fixed. When there is a change in technology, Treasury will not give us the money to upgrade our technology. Whilst we applaud the government, as with many socialist endeavours in this place they are very long on aspiration and very low on delivery and on turning those aspirations into reality. We hope that we are proved wrong in this case.

I started this speech by making reference to the senator from Queensland who took a very courageous stand in opposing the sale of Telstra. I said to him, ‘If you continue with your opposition then we will applaud you, and you will be a great hero throughout Queensland.’ That would have been something he could have used in his speeches forever—that I said he would be a great hero if he opposed this legislation. I said, ‘If you don’t, you have raised our expectations and you will break our hearts.’ He broke our hearts. I do not give this speech to condemn him; at least he put up some sort of a fight, which is more than I can say for the other representatives of rural Australia in this place. In endorsing the legislation, all we can say is: we applaud you for your aspirations but the reality for us is that those sorts of aspirations have never been realised for us. We would plead with the government to, just for once, deliver upon their promises.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Network Information) Bill 2009. The members opposite will be all too aware of the preposterous pledge made by their former leader, Bob Hawke, that under his colourful maladministration ‘No Australian child will be living in poverty’. Of course, this laughable commitment was never fulfilled and there was never any intention for it to be fulfilled, given that Hawke’s words were aimed at winning votes, not at winning the fight against poverty. How little things change with the ALP. Two decades on and his evolutionary spawn, the Prime Minister, heads a government which is promising no Australian child will be living without a high-speed broadband connection. Let us set aside the way in which this reflects the much higher expectations of the Australian public in all aspects of life because of the 11 years of sustained economic growth and widespread prosperity under the competent and enlightened coalition management. What we are seeing in the National Broadband Network proposal is Labor again making grand promises which it has absolutely no idea about fulfilling. Like Bob Hawke, the Prime Minister appears set to be forever remembered and derided for delivering a sweeping but hollow commitment which is entirely based on spin and is totally devoid of substance.

This is nothing but a fancy promise which the government has no hope of delivering and which is a desperately cynical attempt to cover up its failure to make any real progress on a key election promise two years after coming to office. Of course, the government wasted 18 months and $20 million on its first bungled National Broadband Network plan and is again haemorrhaging cash under this latest farcical attempt to win votes through spin rather than action. Millions of dollars are already being poured into salaries and operating expenses for those appointed to manage the network, even though there is no network to manage. Where is the demand or the evidence of the demand for this proposed service? Most Australians already have access to relatively high-speed internet services, whether it be ADSL or ADSL2 or via the dramatically growing wireless internet services. Do the Australian people really want $43 billion of their money spent on a system which will be of marginal benefit to few and of significant benefit to even fewer?

Where is the evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed network? The systems in place work. How will the one proposed be better and to what degree? Will the improvement justify the massive expense and for how long? There have been suggestions of a 10-year roll-out for the proposed network. It has taken nearly six months from the government announcing the plan to bring this bill before us, so the project is already mired in delays. Ten years is an extremely long time in politics but it is several generations in technology. Indeed, we heard the member for Kennedy talking about how in a period of 15 years there have been four different generations of technology, and the government is betting on a technology here.

Ten years ago, most of the high bandwidth services which we are seeing as driving the push for high-speed broadband services today simply did not exist. YouTube, Facebook and, of course, Twitter were not here; yet the government is presuming to plan a network today which will meet today’s demands but not for another 10 years. Will we then have to start over yet again because of an ill-thought-out policy implemented by the members opposite? Why is a long-term strategic telecommunications strategy setting its aim at only the second-rate technology of today when other countries already enjoy far superior network service and are planning to improve these further? Will we be happy with the service when it is complete, whenever that might be? Will we be happy with it after six months, after 12 months or after two years, as we watch communications services in neighbouring countries leapfrog Australia? A $43 billion investment should be delivering more than short-term gratification.

These are just some of many very pertinent questions which remain unanswered on this issue. The Australian public deserve to know these answers before we get the bill passed onto us. It is our duty as members of parliament when considering such massive commitments to ensure that they are the best choices for our country. The government has in this instance failed to demonstrate that this is the case. The members opposite would have us believe that this legislation is essential if Australia’s broadband infrastructure is to be improved and that critics are holding back development of better systems, yet the same members opposite are themselves bent on slowing Australian network speeds through their insidious internet censorship scheme. Of course, the same minister is responsible for both of these farces.

Internet service providers have won the backing of colleagues around the world in their loathing for a man apparently set on hindering the infrastructure he is supposed to enhance. The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy recently won formal recognition for his unpopularity in the industry as Internet Villain of the Year. Some individuals felt strongly enough about the issue that last week they attacked the websites of both the minister and the Prime Minister. Computer users, particularly the more tech-savvy—and a special mention must go to the Whirlpool website forums for fostering real debate of the issue—hold the minister as an object of contempt and ridicule, particularly for his bumbling attempt to impose controls over the medium which is ultimately setting the world free. The internet delivers power to the world’s people. It is an ally of all who cherish freedom, individual liberty and true democracy. That is why it is the enemy of authoritarian rulers in countries such as China, Burma and Iran—and, it seems, of the Australian Labor Party.

Members should recall that under the last coalition government we had a very simple, very cost-effective and very popular program under which families could get free copies of an internet filter program for their homes to protect their children from unsavoury internet content. The Rudd government scrapped that, and two years after taking office the minister is still unable to offer an alternative. Delay after delay has very fortunately put this censorship plan on hold, and for this some thanks must go to internet service providers who refused to take part in sham trials.

By now, the members opposite must also have realised how deeply flawed is the internet filter pursued by the minister, and we can only hope that they will quietly abandon it at some stage. What grew from the idea of protecting children using the internet rapidly became billed as a weapon against child pornography, and these are surely two very different issues. From there, the minister has broadened it to propose blocking Australians from viewing any material which a select group of faceless bureaucrats deem inappropriate. And to top it off, the list of banned material would itself be banned from public scrutiny, effectively making the censors unaccountable. IT experts say such a system will slow the network and that it will not work, regardless. This is particularly the case in combating traffic in child pornography, which reportedly is usually distributed through peer-to-peer networks rather than via websites, and so could continue unhindered by the filter.

And so we have a government pledging to spend tens of billions of dollars on a national broadband network of dubious worth which will supposedly offer higher speed data links to all. At the same time, the government is planning a censorship scheme which will have the opposite effect, reducing data speeds and hindering access. And, most crucially, it would stop the free flow of information which we have come to expect from the internet, a strategy more akin to foreign dictatorships, for which Labor feigns distaste, a strategy wholly not in keeping with our country’s proud history of free speech and open debate. The internet promised to take us all into the future, but this government appears intent on applying the policies of the past in its selfish pursuit of power and control, not only in this building but over the lives of all Australians.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Network Information) Bill 2009. This is not the bill that tells us about the detail of the National Broadband Network; it is simply a bill that allows the government to collect the information in order to design it. This is information that it will need from telecommunications providers, not just Telstra but all the others, and from railways and roads authorities to know where easements are and infrastructure is and so forth. That is why the opposition have recommended a sunset clause. This is a perfectly sensible approach. If this national broadband $43 billion super network ever gets up, and I endorse the member for Tangney’s sentiments in that regard, it would not make any sense at all, nor would it be fair for the government to be the depository of information that its competitors would have.

The way this has been undertaken is another perfect example of lack of consultation. There is absolutely nothing but confusion out there. The member for Tangney says it is two years—to give them the benefit, it is 22 months—since the government were beating their chests at the last election about providing a broadband network that they alleged would be superior to what the then coalition government were delivering. Sadly, all that time has been wasted. The proposal that was put by the previous government, whilst nowhere near the mega-speeds proposed in the dream that the Rudd government is proposing here of 100 megabytes a second, was affordable to a nation of 20-odd million people spread across the same area as Europe. This is a country that is not like South Korea and Japan, with their concentrated populations. This is the land of the great open plains. So the coalition in government proposed a scheme which was ultimately tendered and awarded to OPEL, a consortium of Optus and other regional players across Australia. It was something that was affordable.

The fallacy of the government’s approach with regard to its proposal is that nobody has sat down and done the commercial analysis nor is able to advise the ultimate consumers what this super Rolls Royce mega-scheme is going to cost them to use on a monthly basis. Costs per month of $200-$300 have been mentioned. For heaven’s sake, I get letters from people across my constituency complaining about paying $30-$50 a month. It raises questions in my mind as to the affordability of this dream that is being proposed by the Rudd government. It sounds wonderful as a prophetic dream and has electoral appeal, but I have considerable doubts about whether it is ever going to be delivered.

On top of that, as I speak in my position as the member for Mallee on behalf of the people I represent, the electorate of Mallee is a good example of the lucky and unlucky in broadband in terms of the way this proposal has been put to them. The unlucky are all those people living in small towns of less than a thousand people, of which there are nearly a hundred spread across north-west Victoria, who have much slower but acceptable access to broadband by the use of the copper service. Some of them dial up but most of them have access to broadband. They will be amongst the two million people spread across this vast geographic region who have been advised that even in 10 years they will not be part of this National Broadband Network.

The lucky ones in my electorate are apparently those that live in the provincial centres such as Mildura, Horsham and Swan Hill, but the stupidity is that they would already have had access to much higher speed broadband than they currently have, through the previous government’s rollout. The greatest tragedy, they advise me, is that the contract with OPEL was suspended when the new government came into power. During the election the Labor Party told my constituents that for something like $4½ million they could do better than what the coalition government were delivering. The government wasted nine months or so, could not figure out how to deliver even that and then dreamt up this multibillion dollar dream that is just a dream and will not be fulfilled.

Then there is the question about the huge level of borrowings that will have to be engaged in to provide the $43 billion. The government assure us that they are currently investigating capital participation partners for that, but no businessmen that I know will want to put up billions of dollars knowing that they are investing in a product that gives rise to serious questions about ultimate commercial viability because of the capacity of people ultimately to be willing to pay for it. That is the information we do not have. That causes me to have substantial reservations. Even at $200 a month, the cost is prohibitive and beyond the capacity of Australians to pay. How many Australians actually need a supercharged speed of 100 megabytes per second and how many regional Australians will be able to access this high-speed broadband ultimately anyway? My guess is that a lot of the people in my Mallee electorate, ranging from the Murray River in the north way down past Horsham in the western districts of Victoria, will miss out. Of course we want to see faster broadband, but at a cost which is affordable and without plunging our grandchildren into a commitment to fund the massive debt that is going to be needed to achieve this dream.

Broadband speeds in our major cities are already comparatively good. Of course people want more—they want to exchange more information, they want to watch movies and they want it to be coming faster—but broadband is already at a speed at which we can conduct our business activities. Even in those provincial locations around my electorate—whilst they could do with another 20 or 30 per cent of pipeline capacity, especially the backhaul—what they are currently getting is something that they deem affordable.

Government bureaucracies will never be able to perform with the pace that this technology requires. Ten years ago who would have thought we would be able to sit in this chamber with a small PDA in our hands and address all the information that bombards us every day as members of parliament, with the database that is in there so we remember the names of our constituents? Who would have thought, a decade ago, that that technology would be available in real time, with the member on the road in his car being able to communicate instantly with his constituents? That is the speed at which this technology is going to roll out, and governments just do not have the capacity to do that. We saw the problems that Telstra had as a government owned entity. The limitation of having to go and ask the government owner for permission to borrow $2 billion or $3 billion to achieve its ambitions just did not allow for the pace at which telecommunications companies have to operate to be competitive, to be at the leading edge and to be in front of their competitors. A government structured bureaucracy is just not able to respond at the speed that is necessary.

So I believe that the whole thing is a formula for failure. I think it is a giant con that has been perpetrated on the Australian community. It is not going to happen. Whilst I am prepared to support this bill, provided there is a grandfather clause in it to allow the government the capacity to collect the information it needs, my professional technical background convinces me that the result is not going to be anywhere close to commercial viability.

The tragedy of all this is that the potential to participate in a partnership plan has caused the telecommunications providers across the country to pause in the rollout of their own broadband infrastructure. They are waiting and wondering where this proposal of a national broadband network sponsored by the federal government might take them. The rollout of new technology, particularly infrastructure, is now stymied and has been halted.

Then there is the question of how this money ultimately is going to be paid back. I can advise you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the constituents across my electorate are extremely worried about the size of the nation’s debt and the way it is heading under the Labor government, which does not seem to be all that conscious about debt. It cannot wait to get its hand in the lolly jar. It does not understand that this money has to be paid back. I am constantly challenged in this chamber about the government’s stimulus package and chastised because I did not support the way it was implemented. What I am going to say to the schoolchildren at primary schools and secondary schools in my electorate is: ‘Money does not grow on trees.’ Yes, it is good that they are getting an investment in their school, a new library or classroom or whatever it is they are allowed to do—and I am reminded by many of the school council parents in my electorate that they are being told what they have to invest in and are even being bullied by the agencies that implement state government education policy. In fact, quite a few of the schools in my electorate have been told that they must merge primary and secondary education into what some states call a central school—in Victoria they are called P-12s—or they will not get any money. It is absolute bullying. But what I will say to the students is: ‘Money does not grow on trees. You need to understand that all this capital that is being invested has been borrowed and you, as young Australians, will have to pay it back and probably spend your entire working lives doing so.’

The same applies to the $43 billion that is associated with this bill we are talking about here. It has to be paid back. There will not be enough revenue in any income generated on a commercial basis, if the National Broadband Network is ever implemented. People will not pay more than $200 a month, even for 100 megabytes a second. I think the National Broadband Network, as a result, will be seen as a great furphy and will not actually happen. But I will be urging the government to support the coalition’s suggestion to insert a grandfather clause in this piece of legislation just in case, by some sheer miracle, it does come off.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be brief in offering my support for the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures No. 1) Bill 2009. I represent a region that is excited about the government’s announcement on improving access and the speed of access and the time frame of eight years that the government has set itself to deliver that access and speed of access. I represent a region that is excited about the government’s announcement on delivering equity of information flows throughout regional Australia so that they match those of metropolitan areas and places such as Parliament House. I have previously mentioned in this place that, during the by-election campaign for the seat of Lyne more than 12 months ago, I visited a year 10 student from Camden Haven High School who was on dial-up internet not for technological reasons but for financial reasons. How on earth would that student be able to compete with students in and around this building, where the internet speed is significantly quicker and significantly more reliable? The issues in regional areas include not only speed but also dropouts, and that is incredibly frustrating for everyone involved.

Unlike the previous speaker, the member for Forrest, several members have mentioned that this is probably the most important piece of legislation to go through this place in this session and potentially in the lifetimes of all of us in this place. I say that with the rider that I hope the government are sincere in their actions and, in particular, on the time frame they have mentioned for delivering the NBN rollout. There is, without doubt, a need in regional areas. So I certainly support the government’s decision of 27 April this year to deliver a National Broadband Network through public funding, and I urge them to stick to their commitment and stick to the time frame they have suggested. It will be life changing in regional areas such as the mid-North Coast of New South Wales if this is delivered. In my view, it is long overdue infrastructure for the ex-urban generation. Right around the world we have seen the dilemma faced in public policy on the urbanisation of communities. I would hope that this will see de-urbanisation happen in Australia in a significant way, which is sensible policy for the landmass and for the lifestyles in regional areas, which are so attractive. In many areas, the missing link in regional areas for many people is infrastructure being provided by government. This National Broadband rollout will make a huge difference to life generally in regional areas, and in urban areas as well, as it will relieve the pressures faced by so many in those areas. So I urge the government to stick to their proposal in this legislation and also, importantly, to do so within the time frames mentioned.

One concern I share with the previous speaker is the question of which 10 per cent of the population will miss out on the rollout and will be covered by satellite and wireless. I represent an area on the North Coast which contains many upper valleys and quite hilly country. Delivering information technology—or any infrastructure—into these areas is problematic. I worry that these areas will miss out on being part of the 90 per cent coverage of the NBN rollout. I would therefore take this opportunity to encourage government to drill down on the details of who, where and how, in terms of the 10 per cent who are going to be served by wireless and satellite internet. I think that will cover some of the areas on the North Coast and it should be front and centre of any considerations from government in the broader rollout. If that 10 per cent are left behind and not treated as seriously as the rest of the population then I think the policy will be the poorer because of it and the community of Australia will be the poorer because of it. So I certainly urge government to be active in engaging with the communities that are not going to be in the 90 per cent and will be picked up through wireless and satellite. They are an important part of this package and they deserve to be front and centre in any proposals moving forward.

My understanding is that this legislation does not change too much—except that it gives the minister some extra powers to gather some extra information. It is hard to judge the merits or otherwise of this legislation until we see what the minister does with these new powers that he can expect to have. I hope he uses them wisely. In expanding the power to seek information, I hope the government is aware of concerns about the competition principles, which are potentially being challenged through these changes. My understanding is that if NBN Co. does not release the information that they are seeking from a whole range of new utilities then it will not be a problem. However, I certainly hope government keeps an eye on those competition principles, issues of freedom of information and other clashes that might come in accessing information from this public company, and the competitive neutrality issues that might arise from that in Australia today.

I am also concerned about what the government might find out in the information search from the various traditionally state based companies and state based utilities. I would hope we are not seeing the start of a ‘blame the states’ exercise in any delays to this proposal. If the federal government finds that the state government or their semistatutories have not been lifting their weight in the last 10 or 20 years in keeping infrastructure up to speed with what we would all like in a modern Australia, I would hope there is some intent by this government to address those issues either through the states or through the semistatutories. I would hope this is not the start of any delays on the eight-year commitment in what I have already mentioned is the very important and life-changing rollout of the National Broadband Network.

I was not here but I gather that when this government came to power it was an exercise of dropping the blame game of the states. I certainly hope that commitment sticks in this issue of finding out the utilities and the various states that are going to be part of this network rollout. I hope that we see this government address those issues, if they are missing, through the states or through the semistatutories. I hope the government addresses the issues and does not use them as an opportunity to drop the ball in any way in this rollout.

I support the legislation. This is important in an area such as the mid-North Coast of New South Wales. It is not, I think, because of technological reasons. I think you can buy pretty well anything you want as far as information technology today. It is for economic reasons that regional areas in particular, such as the mid-North Coast, are left behind in an information technology sense. That is not right. Any policy in this place that brings the information-poor closer to the financial-poor is bad policy; they are bad principles. We should be trying to break any nexus between the two and either use knowledge to lift people financially or use money to lift people’s knowledge. But if we can break that nexus, we are doing good work. The NBN rollout is an opportunity to do that. I certainly support this change, with the considerations I have raised, and look forward to seeing some very active work from government over the next eight years to make sure this commitment is delivered in full to regions such as mine.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank all members who have contributed to the debate on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Network Information) Bill 2009. The information that can be collected under this bill will be critical for the timely and cost-effective rollout of the National Broadband Network.

The government has made it clear that its preference is for relevant network information to be accessed on a cooperative and commercial basis in the first instance. The bill provides a safety net should information not be made available. The bill creates a head of power to seek information should it need to be used. The government notes the general support for the intent of this bill from participants in the Senate committee hearings, including from carriers such as Telstra and Optus and representative bodies such as the Energy Networks Association and the Water Services Association.

The government is pleased that the second reading amendment moved by the member for Dunkley does not decline to give the bill a second reading. The government does not, however, support the qualifications that it has proposed, namely:

… the House is of the opinion that:

(1) … the Government should … limit the application of this Bill to the implementation study only; and

(2) … the Government should be condemned for … refusing to conduct any cost benefit analysis of its NBN proposal …

Requiring the government to come back to parliament before information can be provided to NBN Co. Ltd is unnecessary and could delay the rollout of the network should access to that information be required. We know that those opposite delayed action on broadband for the 12 long years that they were in government. That is one thing. It is another thing for them to seek to delay the government’s decisive action when it comes to the National Broadband Network. Importantly, the bill does not empower the NBN Co. to directly compel the provision of information. The NBN Co. must work through the Commonwealth if it needs to seek information under part 27A.

The government does not accept the member for Dunkley’s claim that the government should be condemned for refusing to conduct a cost-benefit analysis. The government recognises that we need to invest in high-speed broadband infrastructure now for the benefit of the Australian economy in the short and long term. That is why it was recognised by Infrastructure Australia. It was also a key election commitment.

We believe that all Australians no matter where they live or work deserve to have access to high-speed broadband. We believe this will only become more critical over time for businesses, consumers, hospitals and schools across Australia. The Liberals and Nationals had 12 years to implement a broadband policy. Instead, they delivered 18 failed plans, setting the country back a decade. Today the best they can come up with is another study to determine the benefit of the NBN.

It is time that the opposition let us get on with the job of rolling out broadband services rather than try to further delay the development of necessary infrastructure. The government has been considering carefully the concerns raised by the opposition. At this stage the government considers the bill has the necessary elements and protections and works well in its current form. The bill already expands the existing time frame for consultation on a draft instrument from three to five business days.

On the subject of an immunity provision, the government recognises information may have limitations; however, an immunity may remove an incentive for parties to provide high-quality information, Moreover, information providers will be able to note any limitations or qualifications of the information that they provide. In response to suggestions by the member for Dunkley that the bill fails to include a cost-recovery mechanism, the government reiterates that its preference is for information to be sought on a cooperative or commercial basis and that payment could be discussed with carriers and utilities during that phase.

These are some of the reasons that the government considers the bill works well in its current form. However, the government is open to finetuning this bill where it can be demonstrated that it would genuinely improve the bill. Amendments that add value could be considered when the bill is debated in the Senate. The National Broadband Network represents 21st century nation building. It will transform the Australian economy as the rail and electricity networks transformed Australia in past centuries. This bill is a critical step in the implementation of the National Broadband Network. I call on all members to support the building of the National Broadband Network and to support this important legislation.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Dunkley has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question put.