House debates

Monday, 25 October 2010

Questions without Notice

Broadband

3:03 pm

Photo of Malcolm TurnbullMalcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. If the government’s aim is to provide Australians with faster broadband, why is it requiring the NBN Co. to do a deal that will bar Telstra from providing 100 megabit per second broadband over its pay TV HFC cable network, which passes 2.7 million Australian homes?

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

As the shadow minister should know, what we are about is replacing the copper network, yesterday’s network, with tomorrow’s network, which is a fibre network to the home. That is why we are addressing those issues. The competition issues involved are being addressed by the ACCC, as is appropriate.