Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the claim by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy on ABC radio this morning that the government’s telecommunications bill has nothing to do with the NBN and that the bill does not even mention the phrase ‘National Broadband Network’. Given that the telecommunications bill mentions the phrase ‘NBN’ 62 times, the explanatory memorandum mentions NBN 136 times and the second reading speech mentions NBN seven times, how can the Australian people have any faith in the government’s arguments in support of the NBN when its own minister does not even know what is in his own legislation?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the question. First and foremost, I will get the transcript checked because from dint of long experience I know that claims made by the opposition do need to be checked and checked extensively. Second, I would say to the member who asked the question that anybody who has seen the minister for communications talk about the National Broadband Network—talk about it in detail at length; talk about its technical capabilities, sometimes at extraordinary length—would know that he is a man who is fully conversant with the National Broadband Network, how it is being delivered and what it can do.

But I would also say to the member: this is the Parliament of Australia, where we are supposed to be focusing on the issues that most matter to the nation’s future. When a transcript about an individual interview is a thing of the past, what will matter to this nation’s future is the power and capacity of the infrastructure that we are proposing in the National Broadband Network. Once again my challenge to the opposition is to stop dancing around the substance of the debate and actually get up and justify why you want Australia to have a fourth-, fifth-, sixth- or seventh-rate solution to our National Broadband Network needs. Why do you want to export jobs to Korea and Singapore so that they will be done by people there, rather than by Australians? Why do you want to deny Australians the service innovation in health and education that will come from the National Broadband Network? Why do you want to deny Australians the benefits of the GDP growth that will come from the National Broadband Network? Why do you want to deny Australians the price advantages of having competition in the retail network? Why do you want to take all of these things away? Now the reality of this debate when we strip it all down—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Prime Minister was asked what confidence we could have in a minister who does not even know his own legislation. She has not dealt with the confidence she has in the minister. She is dealing with everything else.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, the Prime Minister has the call. She will be directly relevant to the question.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Being relevant to the question I was asked about the National Broadband Network, about this government’s degree of confidence in the network, in the Minister and in our program for change, let me say I believe Australians deserve to have a broadband network that is equal to the challenges of today and tomorrow. I believe Australians deserve to have the jobs of the future rather than to see them exported. I believe Australians deserve to have the benefits of price competition on the network. I believe Australians deserve to have the services innovation we will see from the network.

I would say to the member: I understand that in the lead-up to the election the opposition was politically mispositioned on broadband. It had a policy it was so ashamed of that the Leader of the Opposition would not even bother going to the launch and now it has got its ‘Can Co., Can’t Co.’ policy. But it is time to rise above this political interest, their humiliation in moving policy and just acknowledge they are wrong and it is time to act in the national interest. Acting in the national interest is facilitating the delivery of the National Broadband Network.