Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today in strong support of these two vital bills, the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010. These two bills are a key part of the legislative package required to deliver the federal Labor government’s commitment to establish a national broadband network in this great nation, an initiative that defines this government and its vision and that will define this country’s future. Aside from delivering on this nation-building commitment, the NBN access bill will, in particular, provide certainty to business and the wider community about the competitiveness of the National Broadband Network. The NBN access bill will establish clear open-access equivalence and transparency requirements for the NBN Co. It will also extend supply and open-access obligations to owners of other superfast networks that are rolled out or upgraded after the passage of this bill through parliament.

The National Broadband Network Companies Bill will obligate NBN Co. to limit and focus its operations on wholesale-only telecommunications. It will also establish arrangements in reference to parliament for the eventual sale of the NBN Co. once the network rollout is complete. These two bills will deliver on federal Labor’s commitment to establish a wholesale-only National Broadband Network offering access on open and equivalent terms. They are clear evidence of Labor’s commitment to deliver an effective, transparent and competitive network, something it is worth noting that the market has failed to do thus far. I, for one, seriously doubt that they would ever have done so to the extent that included the technical and financial challenge posed by last-mile connection.

During this debate, some on the other side of the chamber, and some commentators too, have suggested that, like President Obama in the US, we should not be putting all our technology eggs in the fibre broadband basket and instead should be concentrating on 4G wireless and satellite delivery. I cannot agree and it seems that neither does the Chairman of Google or the CEO of the NBN Co., Mike Quigley, who said in evidence:

Far from proof that fibre will be redundant, the 4G announcement is very good news for the NBN rollout. While people like the convenience of their wireless devices, fixed networks are and will continue to be the workhorse of data download.

And young people know so much about data download. Today in a briefing I saw an application that is being used by government. Apps are becoming so frequent, so helpful and so instant. It is important to say that the growing popularity of iPads and other mobile devices leads to greater data demands and to meet those demands requires the serious grunt of fibre. That is indisputable. The Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, said a week ago that Australia was ‘leading the world in understanding the importance of fibre’.

I think that was very clearly illustrated on Saturday in an article in Australian Financial Review by Julian Bajkowski. He said:

Lurking in the background is the big sleeper issue that wireless speeds and capacity are, as a function of nature, a strictly limited resource. The more people who pile onto a frequency to make calls, send emails or update their Facebook status, the less signal there is for the next punter connecting to the network.

Imagine a battery hooked up to 100 40-watt light bulbs burning brightly. Multiply that to 1000 bulbs and increase their strength to 100 watts connected to the same battery and the picture dims very quickly without a boost from the mains.

Apply that to mobile phones and you get one or two bars of signal strength in congested metro areas when you should have five.

I think that is a very apt way of describing it so that all people can understand that the more people who use wireless, of whatever status, the more demand on it and therefore the slower it becomes.

I am a member for a regional seat, and we know that in regional Australia there will never be enough towers to meet that demand. It will be fibre that gives certainty, and it will be wire-line services like in the NBN which will take the load off mobile networks and certainly all of the other applications that are going to happen.

I note there is one key issue that the opposition keep raising—the issue that they have danced around—and that is mobile base stations, the same ones that give coverage, are usually connected to the same kind of optical fibre that will power the NBN. Without the NBN we certainly would not be able to deliver on the needs for 4G, 3G et cetera. Fibre is the nationwide spine that we need for the future. While this does have serious limitations, it is contested that the more people on it, the slower it goes. It is prone to interference from noise in a real-world environment and wireless will initially roll out to capitals and prime regional areas, leaving the rest behind. So I find the comments of the opposition quite deceiving and certainly not linked to reality.

The reality is that the homes of every Australian will increasingly become communication central. In the not-too-distant future our homes will be an e-health extension to our doctors’ surgeries and to our clinics and hospitals. Our homes will be an e-learning extension to our children’s schools, to our TAFEs and universities. Our homes will be our e-entertainment centres from where we will access every cultural and recreation experience possible. So many personal and care services will have elements that can be delivered via our home internet service. A stable and reliable real time link—link to fibre—will have countless possibilities.

Although we would all agree that virtual encounters will never be equivalent to a direct personal service, high-speed broadband based on the NBN fibre rollout will be the closest thing to virtual robots in our homes—freeing up more and more people for critical service delivery and helping to overcome workforce shortages and to increase participation. I remain so excited about the profound and far-reaching changes ahead and the impact they will have on workforce shortages and participation in critical areas.

I am very proud that the NBN is a Labor legacy issue and that in decades to come it will be ranked alongside the social democratic reforms of the Whitlam government and the transformation of the Australian economy by the Hawke-Keating governments. The NBN stands as further proof that Labor are the true reformers of this nation and that they are the people who believe in social engagement and participation in every service that we can offer them. Conversely, the opposition to the NBN from the coalition stands as further proof that they are the luddites, the dinosaurs struggling to imagine or create the future.

It is no exaggeration to say that the National Broadband Network represents one of the biggest nation-building projects in Australia’s history. It will deliver affordable, high-speed broadband services to all Australians, irrespective of where they work or where they live. It will extend optical fibre to 93 per cent of premises, with speeds of 100 megabits per second—100 times faster than many Australians have access to today. Other communities will be serviced by next generation wireless and satellite technologies, with average data rates more than 20 times higher than what is currently available to most users. That is the undertaking we have given to the Australian people and that is what we are determined to deliver.

The establishment of the NBN will represent a major step forward for telecommunications infrastructure across Australia. It will be a game-changer for this nation’s future economic competitiveness. As the OECD noted in May 2009:

Broadband is needed as a complementary investment to other infrastructure such as buildings, roads, transportation systems, health and electricity grids, allowing them to be “smart” and save energy, assist the aging, improve safety and adapt to new ideas.

It will affect how we conduct every aspect of our lives, how we communicate, how we express our creativity and our talents and intellect, how we store, share, document, exchange and access all forms of human activity and human knowledge. It will lead to better outcomes, more competition, more choice and more innovation for consumers and business. It will lay the foundations for social, cultural and economic benefit for future generations. Needless to say, its effects on regional and rural Australia in particular will be far-reaching.

By eroding the tyranny of distance, the network will significantly reduce the costs of doing business outside metropolitan areas. The NBN has the potential to deliver very real dividends for the health of regional Australians. By significantly expanding the opportunities for e-health services, it will improve tremendously the ability of regional hospitals—such as Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital—to contribute to the wellbeing of regional communities. For example, the Hunter New England Area Health Service, supported by the federal Labor government’s Digital Regions Initiative, is currently undertaking a three-year program to deliver tele-health services to more than 200 patients in rural and regional communities and the NBN is supporting that initiative. Prior to this initiative by the NBN, we have seen hospitals linked to each other and professionals and experts linked to each other, but we have not seen them able to link to users, to patients. The program targets chronic disease sufferers and links them in their own homes to monitoring, education and support services. It is a wonderful, tangible and real-life example of how telecommunications technology can improve the health of communities otherwise disadvantaged by limited access to health services.

Federal Labor investments in telecommunications are directly benefiting the health of the people of Newcastle and the Hunter Region. On 17 August 2010 the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, announced that Newcastle would be one of the first places in Australia to benefit from the use of electronic medical records. Through Hunter GP Access, patients in my electorate will be able to manage their own records and control access to their own records and control access to the information. GP Access and the Federal Labor government are taking Newcastle’s local healthcare system into the 21st century by building an electronic health records system that improves patient care and the safety and efficiency of the health system. We would love to see that rolled out all around the country via the NBN.

In addition to e-health records, GP Access will use healthcare identifiers for patients, providers and hospitals and will be the first to electronically send discharge summaries and referrals using national specifications. They will help lead the way in developing and informing future planning of the system, improving technology and identifying what works well and what could work better. When used via the NBN across this country, there will be improved interactions and patient information transfers will be fast and reliable. Health is one of the many areas in which the NBN will improve equality of access and opportunity for Australians outside the major capital cities.

I know from firsthand experience the serious limitations to broadband access many in regional Australia suffer. For too long now, residents of the Hunter have suffered from inadequate internet connections, due in large part to the distance limitations of ADSL technology. That is to say that ADSL can only be offered effectively if the residence is within a certain distance of a telephone exchange. As a result of this, places like Thornton and Shortland in my electorate continue to have serious difficulties accessing ADSL coverage due to distance and topographical factors. By offering fibre-optical access to the door of every premise, the NBN offers to fill this serious gap in the economic potential of regional Australia.

Major regional centres such as Newcastle stand ready to benefit from high-speed broadband. Like all my colleagues here in the House, I would of course love to see Newcastle and the wider Hunter Region be among the earliest areas to benefit from the NBN rollout. That is something my local Labor colleagues—the members for Shortland, Charlton, Hunter, Dobell and Robertson—are all particularly supportive of. I pay credit to Regional Development Australia and the Hunter and Central Coast, who are working with local industry to advance our position and ensure the right conditions are in place to maximise the opportunity for Newcastle, the Central Coast and the Hunter region to be among the early beneficiaries of the NBN.

Newcastle’s success in the Smart Grid, Smart City initiative puts our region in the box seat to fully experience the full magnitude of the benefits of high-speed broadband. I would welcome collaboration between the Smart Grid, Smart City consortium, led by Energy Australia, and the NBN Co. Smart technology and innovation are central to the future of Newcastle. The people of Newcastle already know from hard experience how to innovate in order to pursue knowledge and excellence and sustain a diverse economy, and that is what we have been doing across all sectors. We have built a knowledge based economy, and the NBN offers the potential to consolidate that success and make us truly an intelligent community.

The opportunities that the National Broadband network offers to regional Australia in particular may well be endless but they are certainly essential. To paraphrase the member for New England, another member of this House who understands the importance of broadband for regional Australia, the future is fibre, will be fibre, should be fibre and regional Australians should, in the main, be allowed to share in that technology.

This important piece of nation-building infrastructure is deserving of bipartisan support, but the Leader of the Opposition’s proposal to scrap the NBN represents a slap in the face for the people of regional Australia. Sadly, the Leader of the Opposition chooses to put his wrecking-ball politics before the interests of the people of Newcastle and other regional electorates and indeed the interests of this nation. Clearly, the member for Warringah is well out of step with community sentiment on this issue. As the mother of two young adult daughters I sometimes look at him and think: I can’t believe it! My daughters would be so ashamed if I did not understand the importance of this technology to their generation and to their future.

The people of my electorate understand why the NBN will play a crucial role in their economic future. They understand the importance of the federal government stepping in to allow for high-speed broadband access to their homes and workplaces every minute of every day. And they understand that Mr Abbott’s proposal to tear down the National Broadband Network would represent a serious step backwards for their future economic prosperity and the people of regional Australia.

The federal Labor government’s broadband policy will move Australia to the international forefront of connectivity, helping us to compete with countries like Korea, Japan, Singapore and much of Europe, which already benefit from high-speed broadband. The choice for the future of our digital economy is clear. I am pleased to support these bills.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010 form a further part of the legislative scheme dealing with the National Broadband Network, building on the bill that went through the House last year. The key purposes of these bills are to establish NBN Co. and regulate how it operates and how it may be sold; and to regulate the terms on which retailers can get access to NBN Co.—by making further amendments to Parts XIB and XIC of what was the Trade Practices Act but is now known as the Competition and Consumer Act.

In commenting about the legislation that is before the House today, I want to make three fundamental points: firstly, the legislative scheme is a fundamentally bad one; secondly, the provisions incorporated in this bill that make NBN Co. hard to sell are bad policy and essentially intellectually dishonest; and, thirdly, the provisions contained in this legislative scheme to impose, by statute, barriers to entry on players wishing to enter the market to compete with NBN Co. are an atrociously bad idea and should be removed.

Let me turn to the first point. This legislative scheme, of which the two bills before the House today form a part, is a fundamentally bad one. Let there be no doubt that it is well accepted by those on this side of the House that the telecommunications sector in Australia faces two serious problems: firstly, fixed line competition is weak because of Telstra’s vertical integration; and, secondly, Australia’s broadband infrastructure needs to be upgraded. These two propositions are not contentious, but the solution which the Labor Party is putting forward to these problems is contentious in the extreme. We say it is a bad solution; in fact, it is no solution.

Let us remind ourselves of the elements of this solution. Labor is proposing to spend $41 billion of taxpayers’ money, including $27 billion on providing 100 per cent equity funding to a completely government owned company. Secondly, Labor will use that money to effectively renationalise a large part of the telecommunications sector, reversing a policy direction that has been followed in Australian telecommunications for at least 15 years—a policy direction consistent with that followed in many countries around the world.

Thirdly, Labor’s policy exposes government to the very conflict between its interest as regulator and its interest as taxpayer which was faced for many years, and which was a powerful rationale for privatising Telstra in the first place. Fourthly, this scheme will have the government owned NBN Co. enter into a deal with Telstra for Telstra to effectively stop competing and to exit the market. Telstra will no longer operate an access network but will instead use the new access network to be built by NBN Co. Fifthly; Labor’s scheme will see $11 billion of taxpayers’ money spent to secure Telstra’s agreement to this outcome.

Next, once that money is spent, this government is going to take the existing Telstra network and trash it. It is going to completely destroy it, even though that network is more than capable of continuing for many years to deliver both voice and broadband services to millions of Australian homes and businesses. Further, as part of this vandalism, this government will completely destroy the existing hybrid fibre co-ax network operated by Telstra, which passes 2.5 million homes in five cities and is already able to deliver 100 megabits per second. That is the speed which we are told is one of the great selling points of Labor’s NBN. We have a network which can already deliver this speed in Melbourne and could readily deliver it in other cities with some upgrading, and that network is to be trashed.

Further, Labor’s scheme involves putting taxpayers’ money at risk in a business venture which is fundamentally challenged, a business venture which relies on wholly unrealistic assumptions such as a dramatic tapering off in the growth of wireless penetration. Wireless penetration, as NBN Co.’s own corporate plan makes clear, has risen from four per cent to 13 per cent in the last six years. Yet NBN Co.’s operating plan now assumes it will not exceed 16.3 per cent in the 14 years to 2025—a fundamentally unrealistic assumption which you could only arrive at if you were desperate to indicate that your plan was worth pursuing. Even with this fundamentally unrealistic assumption, this plan in which $41 billion of taxpayers’ money is risked will still only able to produce a pathetic seven per cent rate of return. No investor with free will would touch this proposition with a barge pole. Sadly, every Australian taxpayer is a forced participant thanks to the policy of this government, in one of the worst business propositions every promoted in the history of trade and commerce in this country.

The worst aspect of this scheme is that Labor is so desperate to shore up the very dim commercial prospects of NBN Co. that it is legislating to deliberately suppress competition in telecommunications networks by imposing additional burdens on companies which are contemplating entering the market to build networks in competition with NBN Co. My first proposition to this House is that this legislative scheme is a fundamentally bad one. My second proposition is that the provisions contained in this bill which are designed to make NBN Co. particularly hard to sell are exceptionally poor policy and are fundamentally intellectually dishonest.

Those provisions require the following steps to be carried out before NBN Co. can be sold: firstly, a declaration by the communications minister via a disallowable instrument that the NBN is ‘complete’ and ‘fully operational’; secondly, a Productivity Commission inquiry and report on the competitive and financial implications of NBN Co, the privatisation and appropriate post-sale ownership limitations and regulatory arrangements; thirdly, a joint parliamentary committee inquiry and response to the PC report; and, fourthly, a declaration by the finance minister via a disallowable instrument that market conditions are suitable for a sale. Until all of this happens, 100 per cent of NBN Co. will stay in public hands.

This is part of the deeply disingenuous approach of the Labor Party to broadband policy. I remind the House that the original policy, which the Labor Party took to the 2007 election, was that only $4.7 billion of public money would be allocated and it would be allocated in a joint venture with a private sector company. By April 2009, that plan was dead. It was on its back, gasping for breath. It was deceased. By April 2009, we had a $43 billion project. But then Prime Minister Rudd assured us:

The Government will be the majority shareholder of this company, but significant private sector investment in the company is anticipated.

The government proposes that it would welcome private sector participation of up to 49 per cent—that’s all right then! Where is it? Nowhere to be seen. Yet again that aspect of Labor’s policy has been junked.

When the implementation study appeared in May 2010, we learned that 100 per cent of the cost of this venture would be borne by taxpayers. Further, in this legislation, despite the government’s stated commitment to sell NBN Co back into private hands, the government deliberately introduces all kinds of detailed restrictions to make this as difficult as possible. It is no secret why this has happened—this is all about accommodating the Greens, who are opposed to NBN Co. returning to private hands. While Labor may be in government, the Greens are in power.

This bill is also about leaving a ‘poison pill’ designed to tie the hands of a future government when Labor loses power. As we have seen with the grubby conduct of New South Wales Labor, when it comes to the dreadful deal they have done on power this is standard Labor behaviour—you burn the villages as you retreat! That is exactly what has happened in this bill. This is the same Labor which in a fit of hypocrisy steadfastly opposed the privatisation of Telstra for 11 years from 1996 to 2007, even though the previous Labor government had enthusiastically privatised Qantas, the Commonwealth Bank and CSL. Those were good policy decisions. But when it came to telecommunications, unfortunately, we have seen a sad history of bad policy and rank political posturing.

The third objectionable element of this package of bills is the provisions which would impose by statute barriers to any player wishing to enter to build networks in competition with NBN Co.. These are the so-called ‘anti-cherry-picking’ provisions. That rang alarm bells for me when I saw those words, because there is no code word used by a monopolist more frequently than ‘cherry picking’. We have heard those words regularly from Telstra for two decades: ‘This must not be allowed to occur because it is cherry picking.’ I will tell you what it is, Deputy Speaker D’Ath: it is a red flashing light warning signal ‘monopolist behaviour occurring’. That is exactly what we are seeing.

We are seeing a National Broadband Network Company being established and protected by a series of exceptionally objectionable provisions deliberately designed to put lead in the saddle bags of anybody wishing to come in and compete with NBN Co. and build a competing network. They will be required to give automatic access to their network under this legislation. Extraordinarily, they will be required to do so under ‘access rules based on those applying to services supplied by NBN Co.’. In other words, NBN Co.’s competitors will largely be in the hands of NBN Co.; whatever NBN Co. decides to do in terms of pricing or other terms and conditions of supply will bind competitors.

This is an exceptionally radical policy departure for two reasons: firstly, it has always been the case under the telecommunications access regime in Australia that you are only required to give access to your network if it delivers a service which had been determined by the ACCC to be a ‘declared service’, and in turn a threshold condition for this was that, in essence, you had to have market power. It has never previously been the case that a small player, a new entrant, has been required to grant access to its network. But that is what this bill now proposes. The first time you come in and build even a few kilometres of network in competition with NBN Co., you will be obliged to provide access. That is a radical policy departure designed to make it as hard as possible for new entrants, designed to nobble competition, designed to be part of this grubby stitch-up in which competition is sacrificed so that Labor’s ailing, hopeless NBN business plan can be given even the smallest chance of gasping into life.

Secondly, it has never previously been the case that the access terms and conditions committed to by one company in the telecommunications industry automatically binds other companies in the industry. Indeed, it gets worse, because if you are building a so-called ‘fixed-line superfast access network’ you are required to conform with technical standards specified by NBN Co. This is a throwback to the days when Telecom Australia set technical standards and you could be fined for plugging a phone into a jack which did not meet Telecom’s standards. The reality is that for many years the use of so-called technical standards was a standard weapon of anticompetitive conduct by Telecom. It is, frankly, Orwellian that the explanatory memorandum on page 13 calls these the ‘Level playing field arrangements’ and disapprovingly says that competing providers might ‘ignore technical specifications employed by NBN Co.’. Why on earth should competitors be required to comply with NBN Co.’s technical specifications? We do not require Virgin Blue to comply with Qantas’s technical specifications, we do not require Optus to comply with Telstra’s technical specifications and we do not require Woolworths to comply with Coles’ technical specifications. This is a complete perversion of the way that competition should work.

These bills before the House today form part of an overall legislative scheme which is a bad scheme. These are bad bills. Nobody disputes that broadband infrastructure needs to improve. This is a very bad way to do it.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased today to rise and speak in favour of the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010. It was interesting to hear the member for Bradfield provide a bit of a smoke and mirrors performance there, hiding the fact that the opposition has absolutely no plan when it comes to providing access to broadband around this country. We heard a lot from the member for Bradfield about competition. Listening to the member for Bradfield you would think that he thought the current arrangements under Telstra provided a very competitive marketplace. Perhaps he needs to come and speak to the many people in my electorate about the problems with pared gains in Hallett Cove, Reynella and Aldinga or the problems with extending past RIMs in Woodcroft. All these issues have prevented many, many people from being able to access broadband. Why? The vertical integration of Telstra, providing a very uncompetitive market place. This has stopped many people in my electorate from being able to access any broadband at all and has held back many small businesses. In fact, the Southern Economic Development Board puts lack of broadband as one of the No. 1 impediments to being able to grow economically in the south. If the member for Bradfield is trying to convince us that it is a very competitive playing field out there now, he is absolutely wrong.

I welcome the opportunity to address this parliament in relation to these critical pieces of legislation. They will deliver on this government’s commitment to establish a wholesale-only company to build and operate a superfast broadband network on an open and equivalent access basis. This is a key, competitive part of our proposal—that companies will be able to compete competitively to provide retail services. They will not be in a situation where they want to provide services but are locked out of the market and unable to use infrastructure. It will be an open network where companies will be able to compete on an equivalent basis.

The NBN has been developed in response to an industry failure to invest in superfast broadband and to provide a platform for effective competition in the retail market. The passage of this legislation will ensure for the first time that we have a competitive telecommunications market to provide affordable and modern internet facilities to families and businesses around the country. The National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 establishes governance, ownership and operating arrangements related to NBN Co. It acknowledges that NBN Co. is subject to the same regulatory framework as other licensed carriers and goes further by legislating that this company must remain true to its wholesale only mandate and provide access to the NBN to all telecommunication retail service providers on open and equivalent terms. By focusing on and limiting NBN Co. to wholesale only telecommunications this bill prohibits this company from involvement in the retail market, thereby protecting against the kind of market monopolisation that we have seen in the past. Ultimately, this will mean more choice and more affordable prices for better quality services.

Until now Telstra’s dominance in both the retail and wholesale markets has stifled technological progress. The ACCC, in 2003, said:

… Telstra is in a position to largely dictate the type of services that consumers will be able to access and the time at which these services become available.

I cannot count the number of times that constituents in my electorate of Kingston have come to me with concerns about the price and quality of products provided to them. Often these customers do feel helpless because of the monopolised network. These bills will ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. While the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2010 will ensure that the wholesale and retail arms of Telstra are separated, the bills before this House today will ensure that the new NBN Co. will operate as an open wholesale only network encouraging competition and delivering good value services to consumers.

The NBN Companies Bill also provides for the Commonwealth to retain full ownership of the NBN Co. until such time as the NBN is built and declared fully operational by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. This will ensure that the best interests of all Australians, including those in rural and regional areas, are considered at length before any sales occur. This will not allow NBN Co. to go down the same track that Telstra did, leaving significant parts of rural and regional Australia lagging behind the rest of the country. These requirements will enable this government to deliver on its promise to connect 93 per cent of homes, schools and workplaces to fibre-to-the-premise infrastructure and to connect the remaining premises to next generation wireless and satellite technologies.

These bills are about ensuring that all Australians have access to fast and affordable modern internet facilities. The NBN access bill, which is also before the House today, ensures that NBN Co. must provide access to the NBN to all telecommunications retail service providers on an open and equivalent basis. Customers will reap the benefits of this increased market competition. Importantly, this legislation renders all services provided by NBN Co. declared, meaning that all services will be subject to more rigorous and robust standard access obligations than is usually required. All services provided by NBN Co. will therefore be subject to supply and equivalency requirements as well as ACCC oversight.

The NBN access bill is about ensuring that services are provided to carriers in a non-discriminatory manner and with a high level of transparency so that we can create a more level playing field for all retail service providers. NBN Co. must offer equal terms and conditions to all access seekers. NBN Co. will only be able to discriminate on limited grounds, such as credit worthiness, and if that discrimination aids efficiency. Any such discriminations will be subject to further scrutiny and only permissible if all access seekers are presented with the opportunity to accept similar variations in terms and conditions. Should NBN Co. be found to be in breach of its equivalence obligations, retail service providers can seek compensation through the Federal Court. Together these bills will promote competition in the telecommunications retail market, thereby ensuring that this government delivers on its promise to provide better and more equitable broadband facilities to families and businesses around the nation.

I want to talk about the importance of the NBN generally. We regularly hear the opposition say, ‘No, we’re going to stop the NBN; we don’t like the NBN,’ but they provide absolutely no alternative. This government understands that access to affordable high-speed broadband is essential to the way Australians communicate and do business. We have heard a lot about wireless versus fixed line broadband. This is a dichotomy that the opposition regularly put up. They say, ‘Why have fixed line broadband when we can have wireless?’ But these two technologies are completely complementary.

When you look at some of the wireless technologies around the place you see wireless towers. What do you think actually transmits the data to those towers? It is fibre optics. That is what actually does the large amount of data transmission across this country. You cannot say, ‘Don’t invest in a fibre network; we’ll have wireless.’ There is no way to encourage wireless if there is no fibre to get it to the towers. These are two complementary options. Many people who are experts in the telecommunications industry have made it clear that wireless will not substitute for fixed broadband.

The majority of the things that we want to do in the future, whether they are high-speed health consultations over the internet or high-definition videoconferencing or things like that, cannot be done over a wireless network. These things will be very important, and the majority of the data that is transmitted around Australia will need to be done by fibre optics. The government are not opposed to wireless. We think investment in wireless technology is really important, but it is complementary to our National Broadband Network and should not be instead of it. The opposition are grasping at straws when it comes to accessing fast internet services, because they seem to be looking at any excuse not to support the National Broadband Network but have no alternative to get fast broadband for businesses, for education and for health services in the community.

The NBN will help drive Australia’s productivity, improve education and health service delivery and connect our cities and regional centres. The NBN Co. will invest up to $43 billion over eight years to fund the rollout and operation of this historic piece of nation-building infrastructure. This is about more than just fast interconnection and fast emails. It is about increasing our productivity and the benefits that will continue to flow for decades to come. The NBN will increase our economic growth as a nation, but it will also revolutionise the way individuals and businesses all around Australia use the internet.

From speaking to small businesses in my electorate of Kingston, I know that the community is extremely excited about the possibilities that going live will present. Willunga is a town located 50 kilometres south of the Adelaide CBD and home to world renowned wineries and food producers. This town is one of the first release sites and we have seen 90 per cent of residents opt to take up the connection of fibre to their homes. We have seen businesses getting excited, having meetings and looking at the potential this will have. One particularly exciting option, which I have spoken about in this House before, will be the opportunity for cutting-edge videoconferencing. One of the winemakers I have spoken to has seen the very exciting opportunity that it will present. High-definition videoconferencing will allow the winemaker to sit in his winery in McLaren Vale and taste the wine with his buyers in New York. He will not have to leave the winery; he can sit there and drink each wine with his buyers in New York on videoconferencing. He says he will be able to expand significantly his client base in places all around the world, and this is critical for the McLaren Vale region. Many other businesses are talking about how they will use this to increase the number and variety of orders they can take and increase their efficiency. This is very exciting for local small businesses in my electorate. The opposition call themselves the party of small business. If they really are they would get on board and support the NBN. Small business in my electorate is certainly excited, as are many others.

These two pieces of legislation before the House are very important for the regulatory framework and scrutiny of the NBN Co. They complement the legislation for the structural separation of Telstra that occurred in the last sitting week last year. Together they will take this government’s plan for high-speed broadband one step further. I hope that the opposition at some point will see sense when it comes to the National Broadband Network. I was surprised that in my electorate they campaigned against the Broadband Network. I thought that was quite an odd thing to do, considering just how popular the National Broadband Network is—and, more than popular, it is in the national interest. It is critical infrastructure that will have a huge impact on my region, on Kingston, but also around the country. If the opposition cannot get a policy on the National Broadband Network—well, they have got a policy: they are going to oppose it, but if they cannot find an alternative policy—then perhaps they should just get on board, stop their opposition and support this very important piece of national infrastructure.

Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the amendments to be proposed by my colleague the member for Wentworth, the shadow minister for communications and broadband, to the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and cognate bill. The amendments are necessary to ensure transparency, create competition and bring scrutiny on value for money principles to Labor’s white elephant, the $50 billion national broadband plan. Labor’s latest white elephant is an unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ money at this time in our nation.

We face challenges of natural disaster recovery and reconstruction across five states, especially in Queensland; a rising cost of living, due in no small measure to Labor’s reckless spending and massive debt; and increasing pressure on small business, a traditional source of jobs. Now is not the time to commit to a $50 billion spend on a technology that is no better than other technologies being used across the world today—wireless, DSL, HFC cable and other systems that deliver fast broadband. Now is not the time to commit to the largest public works project in Australia’s history with a technology that will be largely superseded and out of date by 2020, at the project’s end. That level of investment, resources and infrastructure would be far better diverted to assisting the rebuilding of Queensland and addressing Australia’s water supply issues.

Ploughing $50 billion into the NBN—most of which will be spent digging trenches and laying pipes—at a time when reconstruction after natural diasters and a once-in-a-century mining boom compete for resources is a guaranteed way to ensure taxpayers do not receive value for money. Any sensible and fiscally responsible government would have the ticker to cancel the NBN plans in the nation’s best interest. The Gillard Labor government apparently has no ticker, nor has it anything but contempt for the Australian taxpayer. This is made clear by the refusal to submit any aspect of the NBN to parliamentary and public scrutiny, and I will return to that point a little later.

What we do know now, after intense pressure from the opposition, is the reluctant admission by the Labor government that households will have to foot the bill to connect the cable from the road to the home. But they cannot tell us how much. What we do know now, after the spotlight of public scrutiny was shone harshly by the coalition on the Labor Party, is the plan to dig up our roads and freeways, city and suburban streets, footpaths and utilities trenches to lay the cable. Again, they cannot tell us how long it will take.

People in the Blue Mountains, in the electorate of Macquarie, know all about roads being dug up. The Great Western Highway has had upgrade works for years which have had an impact on residents, local business and the environment. The electorate of Macquarie is a snapshot of a semi-rural community that already faces challenges of resources, services, telecommunication black spots and the tyranny of distance. From the outer limits of Mount Victoria across to Mount Tomah; in places like Ebenezer, St Albans, and Colo in the Hawkesbury; in the Megalong Valley, in Hawkesbury Heights, Linden, Woodford and many, many more suburbs across the electorate of Macquarie, there are properties large in size and long in terms of distance to the road.

An example is Bilpin, known as the ‘land of the mountain apple’. This village of large acreages has a population of just over 500 people, where the distance from the front door to the front gate would be a week’s exercise for many Sydneysiders. A resident of Bilpin, Kylie Docker, contacted me, seeking an answer to the question: who will pay the cost of connection from the road to the front door? Kylie lives on acreage and the family home is a long distance from the road. Kylie also wanted to know if the cables would be laid underground. I wrote to the Minister for Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, on 10 December. It is now 28 February, and I have still not received a response.

Residents in Wilberforce have raised concerns over changes to the telecommunications landscape and the costs associated with setting up the NBN. Residents in Kurmond are questioning the technology and whether or not it will be outdated before it is operational. Why are we moving to fixed-line fibre optics when countries such as the United States are going wireless? Residents living in Wentworth Falls want details of the broadband policy and the future for small rural villages.

It is not only unacceptable that the Gillard Labor government are determined to waste taxpayers’ money, as they did with the Home Insulation Program and the BER; it is also unacceptable that they are refusing to allow proper scrutiny of the NBN. Many residents in my electorate of Macquarie, already under enormous pressure due to the increases to the cost of living—in gas, electricity, food, fuel, utilities and transport—are quite rightly asking questions about the cost to them of the National Broadband Network. The December quarter inflation figures show big increases in essential food items such as fruit, up a staggering 15.5 per cent; vegetables, up a massive 11.4 per cent; water and sewerage, up 12.8 per cent; electricity, up 12.5 per cent: gas, up 7.1 per cent; and education, up 5.7 per cent. These are goods and services that families cannot do without. At a time when every Australian is facing a constant battle to balance the weekly budget, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand this extravagant spending of taxpayer funds on the NBN by the Gillard Labor government.

I now turn to the double standards being applied by Labor, which are a matter of significant concern to the coalition and the nation, including the residents of the electorate of Macquarie. The Labor government have chosen to be selective in their ‘management’ of Australian taxpayers’ money. The decision to have the NBN exempted from the Public Works Committee Act and the parliament’s Public Works Committee is all about avoiding scrutiny. What is hidden in the yet to be publicly released 240 pages of the NBN Co. business plan? Why won’t Labor allow the NBN to be subject to a cost-benefit analysis by Infrastructure Australia, a review by the Productivity Commission and an inquiry through a joint standing committee of parliament? A cost-benefit analysis would make it clear whether or not the NBN is the most cost-effective method of delivering modern technologies to the family home, businesses, schools, hospitals, industry, government and corporations. The choice of fixed-line fibre optic technologies is questionable, given the range of equally high-performing alternatives. We need to know if the NBN will deliver value for money.

The government estimates the NBN will require around $27 billion in equity funding and will need to borrow a further $10 billion to roll out the network. In addition, they need to do a deal with Telstra, estimated to be worth $11 billion, for use of its conduits and migration of its customers. The $50 billion price tag adds equity, debt and payments to Telstra. Will we as taxpayers get value for money? It appears we will never know. What makes the whole project bizarre is that, in the normal course of events, every contract over $15 million is scrutinised to ensure that the Australian taxpayer is getting value for money. The government has moved quickly to set up a reconstruction inspectorate to oversee public spending on the reconstruction in Queensland but does not see any need to do the same for the $50 billion NBN spend. It does not give taxpayers much confidence in the financial management of the NBN.

There are many questions that remain unanswered. The NBN will be a government built and owned monopoly wholesale provider, with a long-term plan for privatisation. How will that affect long-term infrastructure investment? If the government is the owner and the government is broke, as it always is under Labor, and the NBN is not reaching its performance targets, where will the money come from to upgrade infrastructure? The NBN will initially be a stand-alone wholesale provider that provides layer-2 bitstream services to retail service providers who in turn provide services to end customers. It is not allowed or set up to do retail. How then is the NBN allowed to supply network services to gas, water and electricity utilities, transport operators and road authorities—even though the provision of such services to these entities is an existing and valuable business opportunity for Telstra, Optus and other carriers? Is this selective retail creep? These are just some of the concerns unanswered by Labor.

The coalition remains committed to a policy of providing all Australians with high-quality affordable broadband, regardless of where they live. It is vital that every aspect of the NBN be transparent. The coalition is determined to get value for money for every taxpayer dollar spent, contrary to the Gillard Labor government. I challenge members opposite to support the amendments to be submitted by the coalition.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What I would like to do in this debate on the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010 is to remind those opposite of exactly why the NBN is being introduced, why it is being rolled out and why it is accepted by the Australian people. The Australian people are looking forward to seeing it rolled out throughout the nation. We are and were 17th out of 31 developed countries on broadband penetration, the fifth most expensive amongst 30 developed countries on broadband prices, 50th in terms of broadband speeds, equal last on deployment of optic fibre broadband and 29th out of 50 countries on an average connection speed at 2.6 megabits per second.

It is very sobering to restate those facts no-one on the other side can deny. They had 13 years to do something about it and 19 or 20 plans to do something about it as well. One cannot say they did not put up some plans. The trouble is that they could not put up anything else with them. I reckon the great testimony to that is that the second last or third last—I cannot remember now there were that many—spokesperson to put forward their plan in the last election, only last year, is now languishing somewhere on the back bench, having been thanked for the effort he put into putting forward a broadband plan for the opposition, and every now and again we hear him gnashing his teeth and screaming his head off about Bill Shorten and other people. No doubt they will drag him out for another plan, plan 25, later on.

We now have the current spokesperson on ‘Let’s not produce another plan for broadband’—the member for Wentworth. What are his riding instructions? Destroy the NBN. I am not surprised at all because everything you hear from the other side is no, negative, not now, never. Anything else associated with negativism is from that side. The member for Wentworth, the member for no, has been sent out to try and destroy broadband.

I can tell you the Australian people want the NBN. It has fantastic prospects. Did you know that a recent Akamai internet report showed that no Australian city was in the top 100 cities for average internet connection speed? How’s that for a legacy? Fantastic! Australia was last in the OECD for fibre penetration for broadband—not second last, not third last but last, zero, zilch, bottom of the class. Australia was ranked 50th in the world for internet speeds, on a par with Russia, and lagging almost every single advanced industrial economy, including our friends across the Tasman. Australia ranks 31 out of 50 countries on the percentage of connections of more than two megabits per second. Only 45 per cent get two megabits per second in Australia. But it is rising ever so slowly for those persons who are on the NBN. Some of those people are in my electorate; so that is absolutely fantastic. The NBN is actually rolling out and this mob on the other side wants to stop it. They will use any excuse, any old negativity, to stop it.

To finish off the unfortunate statistics that are the legacy of the last coalition government before we came into power, Australia ranks 29th out of 50 countries on average connection speed. That is not a good record and we are trying to do something about it, at least on this side. I remind those opposite, because it is very relevant to this legislation, that a week prior to the 2010 federal election the opposition released a plan—I think it was No. 19 or 20—which was a $6.25 billion alternative policy. We eagerly waited for what it meant. It was relying on a combination of public and private funding to build a primarily wireless network delivering a peak speed of 12 megabits per second to 97 per cent of the Australian population, it said. The plan included $3.5 billion to be spent developing an open access, optical fibre backhaul network. It did not take long for the general telecommunications industry to assess it, and it was described as ‘harking back to an earlier era’, ‘lacked vision’—that is strange, is it not?—and ‘muddy and unclear’.

Indeed, I think Rupert Murdoch himself best sums up the need for NBN. In assessing the state of broadband in Australia prior to NBN, he actually said it was an absolute disgrace. That is the legacy we inherited, and now with some vision, some boldness and with some certainty we wish to continue to roll out the NBN. All those on the other side want to do is either delay or destroy it. I have got news for you: the Australian people have made up their minds about the NBN. They want it and the quicker we get on with it the better. That is what this legislation is designed to do. The two bills, the National Broadband Network Companies Bill and the NBN access bill, deliver on our commitment to establish a wholesale-only NBN offering access on open and equivalent terms.

Mr Deputy Speaker, for your interest in this topic, what are some of the more specific aspects of the companies bill? That is at the heart of what we are discussing here. I would like to range through a few aspects to reinforce our case for this legislation. Importantly, it defines NBN Co. to include—heavens above!—NBN Tasmania and any company the NBN Co. controls. I mentioned earlier that the NBN began in Tassie. It began its history, began its journey and began its story in Tassie.

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my electorate of Bass!

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My colleague the member for Bass is here, and it commenced at Scottsdale, I believe. It also commenced in my electorate, in the beautiful township of Smithton, where they are doing some extraordinary telecommunications work on wireless technologies as well. It is going to benefit the rest of regional Australia when all of this fantastic stuff comes out. It also commenced at Midway Point, Sorell, in the electorate of Franklin in Tassie. So the NBN is on a roll. I have had the privilege of seeing the NBN in operation. It is awesome, not only just for speed but for the clarity of the images. It was just wonderful stuff, and I really look forward to its application to a whole raft of things and for people and organisations.

The bill limits the NBN Co. to wholesale only telecommunications activities, as we promised, including in relation to the supply of services and goods and also investments. It establishes powers to enable functional separation and the transfer or divestment of assets. It enables the minister to make licence conditions, including prohibiting NBN Co. from providing specified services. It requires the Commonwealth to retain full ownership until the NBN is built and fully operational. So there will be no dilution of it. We will see it through to the end. It requires a Productivity Commission and parliamentary committee review prior to any sales process—so no little deals being made; it will be open, transparent and accountable.

The legislation establishes the framework for the eventual sale of NBN Co. It enables regulations to be made to set limits on the private control of NBN Co. post privatisation and establishes reporting obligations on NBN Co. once no longer wholly Commonwealth owned. It exempts, finally, the NBN Co. from the Public Works Committee Act 1969.

It is important to note that there is no longer a requirement that the NBN Co. must be sold within five years of its being declared built and fully operational. Rather, this will be left to the judgment of the government and parliament of the day, enabling both to have due regard to the role the NBN is then playing, market conditions, and any other relevant factors.

As regards the NBN access bill, firstly, it makes all services provided by NBN Co. declared and thereby subject to supply and equivalence requirements and ACCC oversight, so there is accountability and transparency. It establishes the mechanisms to ensure that the terms and conditions relating to the supply of services by NBN Co. are transparent. It requires NBN Co. to offer services on an equivalent basis, with discrimination only allowed where it aids efficiency and other limited circumstances, which, again, are subject to ACCC scrutiny.

It requires the publication of access agreements with different terms from the standard ones already published to provide a high level of transparency. It provides a more level regulatory playing field for all new, extended and upgraded superfast broadband networks by extending obligations that apply to NBN Co. to owners of superfast networks upgraded, altered or deployed after the introduction of these bills to parliament.

I again would like to put on the record my support for this government and particularly the relevant minister, Minister Conroy, for developing the NBN from what was essentially a vision and then beginning to see it roll out. I look forward to the future with Telstra coming on board so that we can extend the network efficiently and effectively and of course get it to as many premises as possible—businesses, households and persons—as we can throughout Australia.

So I recommend the legislation and I suggest to those opposite that they try for once to be positive. If they are not, let me remind them that the Australian people are and, contrary to all the template answers that they pop out on that side, the NBN is being embraced by the Australian population. It is supported by the Australian population. So I ask those opposite to get on board and support this legislation, because we can have the NBN rolling out. It is as important as extending the highway system throughout Australia into the next century. That is how important it is as a piece of infrastructure in this country. And to have the other mob saying that the NBN should be postponed or deferred in the wake of the floods in Queensland and those other unfortunate natural disasters is really throwing in a red herring. It is as important that we get on with the NBN Co. now as it ever was, particularly to those areas that have been affected by the unfortunate natural disasters. So come on, the other side, get on board. I really look forward to hearing the other members talking about the legislation before them and the provisions of the bill. Let’s hear you go through the provisions of the bill one by one so that we know specifically what you are talking about. If you need to, then you be negative on each provision and explain to me exactly why you are negative. But you cannot; you have got your little template answers up there ready to rip, so don’t let me stop Hansard from recording you.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we know, Australians do need fast, reliable, affordable and secure broadband services, and my electorate has many broadband black spots and backhaul issues. It is a seriously underserviced area, one of the underserviced areas around Australia. It should be a priority under any broadband plan to deliver to areas where not only the technology has not been available previously but also where government services have not been available previously, and I will keep working for better broadband sooner for the Forrest electorate. But, unfortunately, Labor’s National Broadband Network is not the best way to meet the needs of Forrest or the rest of Australia. If it were so, given that this is the Labor government’s fourth year in office, in my electorate the underserviced areas would have already had delivery. But now we have another never-never plan for the south-west.

Given that the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010 relate to access, I have a number of questions about the management, engineering design and security, as well as the commercial terms. Specifically on the commercial terms: given that there will be no parliamentary oversight, how will we know whether ISPs have equitable access? How many will actually have access? This government is notorious for picking winners and losers. The lack of scrutiny and oversight will enshrine this opportunity for the government, unfortunately.

I also want to know who is responsible for the national security issues in the construction and maintenance of the NBN. The government now has this responsibility because of the total government control of the NBN. This will give the government far greater control over broadband than even the government in communist China had. But with this total government control and ownership comes total government responsibility for the national security issues of the NBN and total taxpayer liability for security breaches and commercial costs where fibre network breaches occur. The NBN places Australia in a situation where acute oversight of the NBN is a matter of national security as well as government agency and individual customer security.

Who at this moment is responsible for the security and integrity of the fibre technology and components during the construction phase? Who is doing that? Who was responsible for the engineering of this security? Who has oversight of this engineering and design? Who is making sure there are no inherent design flaws and faults that could lead to not only national security problems but also commercial or personal security breaches? Who has oversight of the physical components being used in the construction? Who is responsible for the ongoing maintenance and efficient end-to-end security of the fibre-optic cable, given the scale of the NBN? What entity will provide a report on the ongoing integrity of not only the fibre-optic cable where the fibre is installed at the premises but also the sites where the NBN connects to the wider internet? What agency will provide oversight for NBN customers as well as taxpayers that NBN Co. ensures that there is no tampering with the fibres—for instance, that there are no added illicit links? Who is responsible for the physical hardware and software security?

I understand that in the United States, the National Security Council is overseeing their form of the NBN. Do we have that same level of security here? What is the taxpayer liability for any legal action arising from evidence that breaches or tapping of the NBN fibre cable is responsible for commercial costs and losses? Who will provide the independent security audits for NBN Co.? Who will be liable if there is a serious breach in the security of the system? Who will pay?

Who is protecting our national security: will it be the entity defined in this bill—the NBN Co.—that restricts NBN Co. to business and financing activities directly related to its core function of supplying wholesale communication services? Maintaining the integrity and security of the NBN will be part of NBN Co.’s core functions, whether the government admits this or not. Cyberterrorism is a serious and growing transnational security issue. When the NBN is finally complete in 2030 or so—I think that is the latest estimate—93 per cent of all premises in Australia will be linked to the NBN single fibre loop. When the data of government departments and agencies, of hospitals, of key city and regional infrastructure, of water delivery systems, of electricity systems, of emergency services—core critical services—is concentrated, what a prime target for cyberterrorists and transnational crime it will be.

The NBN will facilitate instantaneous crime at a speed and frequency we have never experienced in this country. I was a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications when it inquired into cybercrime. Our report stated very clearly that cybercrime is now a sophisticated transnational threat that operates on an industrial scale and has become an increasingly important issue for the global community. A report by the Kokoda Foundation, entitled Optimising Australia’s response to the cyber challenge, released on 4 February this year at the National Press Club, said:

… cyber security has become the fundamental weakness in Australia’s national security, and that the threat is poorly understood by politicians, business people and the general public.

This report was co-authored by former Deputy Chief of Air Force John Blackburn. The report identifies that Australia has reached the point where our ability to respond to internet attack is being rapidly outpaced by advances in cyberattack and cyberterrorism. The foundation also states:

A case in point is the mooted National Broadband Network (NBN) … once the network is built, taking high-speed broadband services through fibre-optic cable to an estimated 93 per cent of households, responsibility for maintaining cyber security will rest with retail service providers rather than NBN Co.

It is inconceivable that the government would try to absolve itself of any level of responsibility for internet and cybersecurity in designing, building and maintaining the fibre system. This is a national security issue. NBN Co. and the government cannot walk away from that. As I said, it will be end-to-end cyberinfrastructure on a scale never seen here or anywhere else in the world. The job of securing that system will also be of a scale that we have never experienced and it will facilitate cybercrime and cyberterrorism opportunities on a scale we have not experienced.

I strongly suggest that a former Deputy Chief of Air Force knows what he is talking about in relation to national security. Essentially, from Air Vice Marshal Blackburn’s comments, by the very nature of the interface between NBN Co. and internet service providers, our national security will by default become the responsibility of internet service providers. I am told that it is not at all difficult or expensive to tap into a fibre. In fact, a transparent tap can be applied at the point of access to the premises in about three minutes flat.

I also want to know where the 14 points of interconnect will be physically located. Who will be responsible for the impact of cyclones, flood or fire on the National Broadband Network itself, as well as the 14 or so points of interconnect? I want the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, to answer this question: was the connection point for Queensland located on the flood plain and is it still located on the flood plain? Are the rest of the proposed POIs located out of high-risk areas? We have seen what has happened with floods and cyclones. This is particularly relevant, given that the majority of the fibre in Tasmania is overhead cabling. Will this be NBN Co.’s cost and risk or the taxpayers’ cost and risk? What is plan B for any major damage to the NBN’s single backhaul loop? I have discussed some of these issues with Dr Walter Green, a WA telecommunications engineer. He said it is vital for the government to build security transfer into the NBN to accommodate the transport of data.

NBN Co. only allows for 14 points of interconnection, or POIs, to be located in the major cities across Australia. I note that the ACCC recommended that 195 POIs be built. It is an unfortunate reality that just 14 POIs, or even 30 POIs, would be easy targets for terrorist groups wanting to disable or damage the country’s entire internet system. In practical terms, at least one million people, businesses and government agencies or departments will be connected to each one of these 14 POIs. They would be excellent targets for sabotage or could be exposed to national disaster. Imagine what damage could be caused and what threats to our security there would be even if you took out two or three of those. That is all it would take.

That is just one example of a serious engineering flaw; it is a national security risk. I also question whether the NBN design will handle 13 million customers, each with 100 megabits per second. That is a cumulative 1,300 terabits of data. I understand that there are only six or so one-terabit fibre links in the world right now. Does the NBN have the capacity to handle this?

The NBN will have a massive amount of traffic from customers at each POI. I ask: can it handle that volume? I note that Alcatel-Lucent, a supplier of electronic equipment to the NBN, recently prepared a security perspective of the NBN, which explained what other organisations need to do to ensure security—most of which I understand is common knowledge. But there are two main concerns with two security components that are under the control of the NBN. Firstly, the claim that it is difficult to tap into a fibre cable is false. I am informed that fibre to the premises used to be expensive until a simple low-cost method of tapping into a fibre was developed. That is the very technology that reduced the cost of fibre. The claim that it is easier to tap into copper is no longer true as these fibre-tapping devices are now widely available and it is the capacity to tap into fibre that underpins the NBN fibre rollout.

Secondly, there are two points that can be accessed at the NTU: the fibre connection and the copper ethernet connection to the devices in the home or premises. I am told that the encryption process used by a gigabit passive optical network creates another management overhead cost for carriers. Given this, will the encryption for the GPON be turned on for all network connections or will it be an extra feature that customers will have to pay for? This encryption will not necessarily provide security. I understand that the GPON encryption can be bypassed when a hacker taps into the copper ethernet connection of the network terminal unit located in protective casing, which I understand will be located at the front of the premises. That is why the building owner should have the choice of placing the NTU inside the house to prevent illegal tapping—although I note that in the current plan, customers have to pay for their NTU to be installed inside their properties.

I want to know who will maintain security at ‘the pit in the road’ point? What is to stop someone unscrewing the cap, plugging in monitoring equipment and a small wireless service, monitoring traffic for 24 hours or whatever time they want, then coming back and retrieving the information? NBN Co. claims it will encrypt the data between the premises and the POI. I wonder how the NBN will manage 13 million passwords? The minister must confirm that each customer will have their own key.

I have also been unable to secure from the minister any confident information about when the NBN will be rolled out in the south west; which towns in my electorate will be connected to the NBN via fibre cable, which will have wireless service and which would have to use satellite? Given that the NBN will only provide universal wholesale prices to retailers, will the regional and rural consumers in my electorate be paying the same amounts as metropolitan consumers, whether it is for connection to the NBN, satellite or wireless? And what proportion of the network will be installed as overhead cables? These are vital questions that deserve to be answered and I encourage the minister to respond to my constituents in a timely manner.

I see that the NBN will cost at least $50 billion. I suspect that that will be quite a conservative estimate by the time it is finally built. As we know, any prudent, responsible government would have committed to a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis. There really has been no external appraisal of the viability of the NBN. It is really incumbent on a responsible government to deal with these particular issues. We know about the growth in wireless and other technologies. The minister must answer the key questions that I have raised in relation to the management, engineering design and security as well as the commercial terms, given that there is no parliamentary oversight on whether ISPs have equitable access.

I think that these issues of security certainly need to be dealt with. The Standing Committee on Communications in its inquiry into cybercrime tabled a report called Hackers, fraudsters and botnets. A number of witnesses who gave evidence to the committee mentioned that the NBN was a future cybersecurity issue that had to be dealt with. I really want the minister to address the specific questions that I have raised in this speech today.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is clear that there is no issue that escapes an opposition scare campaign. Even the NBN is now subject to a scare campaign. It is an interesting and different tack that we are hearing from the member for Forrest. She is actually complaining that there are risks with this that do not exist with wireless. She is also complaining that too many people are going to use the NBN—there are going to be 13 million—and therefore there will be all these additional security risks. Some of her colleagues have said that the NBN is not going to be used by many people. One thing is very consistent with those on the other side, and that is the absolute inconsistencies in the way in which they approach the NBN. But that should not be a surprise to anyone here. In their 11 years in government they were very good at coming up with plans—they came up with 19 plans in 11 years—but unfortunately they were not able to implement, roll out or start any of them.

It appears that what those opposite are trying to do in relation to the NBN is what they do with every issue—that is, just oppose. The thing that they must talk about in their party room meetings is, ‘We don’t have a position so let’s just oppose anything that the government is looking at doing.’ The NBN is a classic example of that.

I would like to talk a little bit about my electorate and why it is so essential that we have the NBN. We are a community that has identified that we really do need the NBN and fast broadband. Thirty-five per cent of the people who work in my electorate commute to Sydney every day. We have communications difficulties even in our technology parks. Businesses are looking at moving out of the metropolitan area to the beautiful Central Coast because of the cheaper land and to employ people, but the technology base is not there to enable that to happen properly. So, if you are looking at areas that are going to benefit from the NBN, it is those outer metropolitan areas in the big cities which do not have the infrastructure, that have a large commuting community who spend hours commuting that need it most. It is a round trip to Sydney for commuters in my electorate of about four hours every day, and they do that because we do not have the technology that will create the jobs on the Central Coast. So we need the NBN more than most.

It is little wonder that the NBN is universally supported on the Central Coast. There is no political divide in relation to this. Liberal Party members, businesses, community groups, welfare groups, education groups, health groups—they all say the same thing: ‘We need the NBN and we want it fast. We want it as quickly as we can get it.’ When I was talking to the minister about this, he said it was not that he was having people say, ‘Don’t bring the NBN to my area’; He has a huge queue outside his door with communities right around Australia, communities like mine on the Central Coast, knocking down the door saying, ‘We want the NBN now. We can see the benefits. We need it now.’

One of the groups on the Central Coast that has been formed to campaign around this issue is a business group led by Dave Abrahams and Edgar Adams. Edgar Adams is the editor of the Central Coast Business Review. Edgar Adams has been very direct in his criticism of those opposite in his magazine for, in his words ‘simply not understanding the difference between fibre and wireless’. He has made the point in his magazine on numerous occasions that in his view this was the single issue that cost them the election last time. I do not agree with Edgar on many things, but I do agree with him on the need to have the NBN rolled out, especially to areas like mine on the Central Coast.

This business group has identified a number of issues. They have said that the National Broadband Network will drastically boost regional productivity, that it will boost participation and new market activities, employment and innovation opportunities and that it is the only serious broadband plan that can be supported by the business community. They are unequivocal in their support for the NBN. Mr Abrahams and his group say the NBN will drastically improve productivity that has been stagnant or negative for over a decade. Current copper and wireless broadband networks cannot cope with Australia’s 34 per cent annual bandwidth growth, and these legacy networks do not provide upload speeds that can effectively increase productivity. It is in no-one’s interest to have a mum and/or dad commute for two to five hours a day to sit in an office in northern Sydney to utilise the CBD-grade broadband infrastructure required to do their work simply because the National Broadband Network has not been available or is going to be opposed by those opposite.

This expert group also points out that the NBN will boost participation in new market activities, as well as boosting opportunities in employment and innovation, particularly for youth. In fact, one of the groups involved in this committee is Youth Connections. Youth Connections is a fine group, which aims to reduce youth unemployment on the Central Coast, so it is only natural that they would gravitate to and support this initiative which is providing technology that is clearly going to make it easier for young people to get jobs locally.

The expert groups have said that the dotcom mark II boom is taking off now, led by the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube—each stimulating massive changes in business and culture. They have said:

There are very real opportunities in the new frontiers of business and cultural development that the NBN will provide premium world-class access to.

Youth unemployment in regional Australia is stubbornly high, including on the Central Coast, where youth unemployment has hovered between 30 and 40 per cent for over a decade and is only now slowly coming down. Our expert communications and information technology group also believes that the NBN is the only serious broadband plan on the table. There are simply no costed alternatives to the NBN. There has been much talk about options but no-one has produced an engineering plan, a business case or any real options ready to go. The telecommunications industry knows this and realises a collective investment in infrastructure like the NBN will grow everybody’s market significantly and stimulate employment and service developments in health, education and business. The industry estimates that the investment on the Central Coast alone from the NBN will be in the vicinity of $400 million. The direct investment and spin-off economic benefits to the region, including employment, will be significant.

Not only will the communication and information technology infrastructure be vastly upgraded and improved, but businesses which depend on technology will have opportunities to start up. On the Central Coast, most of the businesses are small businesses. This is not unusual for Australia, but on the Central Coast in particular most businesses are small businesses and a lot of them are mum-and-dad businesses. The NBN provides that opportunity for them to compete on a much larger scale in a much broader market. If every one of those businesses were to employ just one person, then the sorts of youth unemployment levels that we have seen for a long time on the Central Coast will disappear almost overnight.

It is important to address the argument in relation to wireless versus fixed line. The Competitive Carriers’ Coalition has recently said that current discussions about the upgrade of wireless networks and the implications for the National Broadband Network reflect a lack of understanding about the role of wireless and fixed line networks in the future. According to the CCC, wireless and fixed line networks and services are complementary, not substitute, services. Anyone who knows anything about this type of technology would not argue with that point. They said that wireless technology has evolved to deliver fast speeds from the towers to the users but is not likely to ever evolve to a point where wireless mobile networks can replace fixed line networks. Likewise, fixed line networks will never provide the mobility that wireless networks provide, even though the connection within people’s homes may be via wireless modems. These inside-the-home mobile networks—which many people confuse it with—are not the same as mobile wireless networks operated in Australia.

It is also worth noting—it has been much quoted here, but I am going to quote it as well—the endorsement by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and now executive chairman of Google, who recently said to the Mobile World Congress:

Let me start by saying that Australia is leading the world in understanding the importance of fibre. Your new Prime Minister, as part of her campaign and now as part of her prime ministership, has announced … 93 per cent of Australians … will have gigabit or equivalent service using fibre and the other seven per cent will be handled through wireless services of the nature of LTE. This is leadership, and again from Australia, which I think is wonderful.

Right around the world people know and acknowledge that fibre is the way to go, that fibre is future proof in relation to what it does. No matter what arguments are put up by the opposition they cannot argue with the laws of physics in relation to the way in which the speed will operate with fibre. There is nothing faster than fibre, nor can there be because of the laws of physics.

Instead, what we have from the opposition are arguments for the sake of arguments. They have no position themselves, other than a position of opposition. They had 11 years in which to come up with a plan, and they did a great job in coming up with plans—more than 1½ every year—but that was all they would do. Each year they would change the plan a couple of times, come up with another plan and then say, ‘That’s all we need to do’. Now that there is a real government here that is about changing and improving Australia’s infrastructure, the opposition’s only position is, ‘We’re going to oppose it no matter what they say.’ Not for any rational reason, but just for the sake of opposing the NBN. This is what we have seen from this opposition in relation to every piece of important legislation that this government has put through or has attempted to put through. It is the same response that we had in relation to the global financial crisis. They are now trying to reinvent the history of that, but their position then was, ‘Let’s do nothing; let’s just let the market look after itself.’ We all know where we would be if that had been the case. Australia has come out of that as the envy of all Western countries around the world as we are with our proposed investment in the NBN.

What we ask of the opposition is that if they do not support our legislation, just get out of the way. Let us get on with delivering vitally needed infrastructure to communities like mine that have been crying out for this sort of investment for years and years. It takes a Labor government to build proper infrastructure in Australia. We need the opposition to get out of the way to make sure that we can get on and do the job. I commend the bills to the House.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to address the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010. The National Broadband Network Companies Bill is designed to limit the operations of NBN Co., which is the Commonwealth-owned builder and operator of the fibre internet network. It also seeks to establish the framework through which the NBN Co. will eventually be privatised. Similarly, the telecommunications legislation amendment bill proposes changes to current legislation to ensure that NBN Co. gives equal access to all retail carriers. Collectively, these bills are designed to push ahead with the rollout of the Gillard Labor government’s white elephant, the National Broadband Network. What we know about the NBN is that it will take at least eight years to roll out—more like 15 to 20 years—it will cost the taxpayer at least $50 billion dollars and it will reach 93 per cent of Australian premises.

To translate those figures, what we have here is the single largest taxpayer-funded infrastructure project in our nation’s history. Yet despite the massive commitment of our money made by the Gillard Labor government, seven per cent of those taxpayers who fork out will not even get access to it. Worse still, we have not been supplied with a cost-benefit analysis, and there are serious doubts about whether the internet services promised will actually be cheaper than what is currently available.

The problems do not stop there. As I mentioned, the NBN will take eight years to roll out, and that is if it is done on time and on budget. But can we really expect that to happen? Of course not. Remember, the Rudd-Gillard Labor government is the same one that wasted billions of dollars on a failed and tragic home insulation scheme. This is the government that wasted billions of dollars building dodgy school halls that were not as good as the buildings knocked down to make way for them. This is the government that is so incompetent at controlling our borders we now have a record number of people risking their lives on unsafe boats run by illegal people smugglers. But let us be generous and give Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, the benefit of the doubt.

Eight years is a long time in technology. Allow me to provide some examples. Eight years ago Windows released its new operating system XP 2003. Since then we have since had Windows Vista and Windows 7. Eight years ago Apple launched its first iTunes store. Today, the iTunes store accounts for more than 70 per cent of all worldwide online digital music sales. Eight years ago Apple’s premium product was the iBook laptop. It has since created the iMac G5, Mac mini, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, and most recently the iPad. Eight years ago your average USB thumb drive was eight megabytes. Today you can pick up a one terabyte portable memory device for around the same price. That is about 131,000 times more capacity. Are we seriously supposed to believe that the NBN will be up-to-date if it is finally delivered in almost a decade from now?

Journalists have also raised issues with the Gillard Labor government’s NBN plan, including concerns over cost, relevance, access and competition. I refer to an article by Mitchell Bingemann published in the Australian on 8 February in which he compares the Australian approach to that in the United States. He writes:

THE Labor government is betting its $36 billion National Broadband Network can only be built by government and must rely almost universally on a fibre optic network.

But last month US President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address went in the reverse direction, promising the American people a nationwide wireless network among other technoligical solutions built by the private sector. The question is does Obama know something Communications Minister and NBN champion Stephen Conroy does not?

               …            …            …

The project is bold, ambitious and expensive, but it is also one that was devised in haste, bereft of industry or public consultation, or considered against the demand for other broadband technologies such as wireless internet access. The US plan in contrast was forged through extensive public workshops which drew more than 10,000 online and in-person attendees and generated some 23,000 comments totaling about 74,000 pages from more than 700 parties.

The article goes on to reference President Barack Obama, who says that it is America’s free enterprise system which drives innovation. He said:

That’s what planted the seeds for the internet. That’s what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS. Just think of all the good jobs—from manufacturing to retail—that have come from these breakthroughs.

Finally, Bingemann quotes Peter Cox, a respected media and telecommunications analyst, who says:

We want a clever and educated Australia and we know broadband helps this. We can encourage Australia down this path by providing fibre to all major and small businesses but this doesn’t mean we need fibre to every home. We can achieve the outcomes that are required at a much lower cost by changing the mix of technologies the government is prescribing.

The bottom line is that you don’t need to spend anywhere near what we are spending to achieve the NBN goals. The issue is not about us building fibre or wireless networks, it’s about getting that mix right at the right cost.

The issues raised by Bingemann are wide reaching, and it is extremely important that we get a proper explanation before any further money is spent on the NBN rollout. The Gillard Labor government needs to provide detailed, costed and relevant answers to the questions raised. Why is this project best delivered by government and not through private enterprise? Why do we need fibre to every home? Will enough people take up the service to actually make it affordable and viable?

A telecommunications analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Ian Martin, raised another important point in an article entitled ‘Tied to cable yet future is wireless’ which was published in the Australian on 8 February. He wrote:

The US wireless broadband initiative has left some supporters of the NBN nonplussed. Why couldn’t Obama see, as Kevin Rudd did, with Julia Gillard’s endorsement, that a government-owned, wholesale-only, fibre to the home network was the better vision to “underpin future productivity growth and our international competitiveness”?

For one thing, Obama couldn’t afford it. Even a fibre access network to 80 per cent of US households would cost $US80 billion to $US100 billion. It’s unthinkable that congress would have supported that kind of budget spending. Nor would it have supported a similar role for government in owning and operating a fibre access network. And structural separation of access networks was tried and failed in the US in the 1980s.

More important, President Obama chose to support wireless broadband over fibre access because it has more to offer. Bearing in mind that the backbone of wireless networks is typically a fibre core, it’s wireless broadband, not fixed broadband, that is growing with advances in wireless network capability, wireless devices and applications. Obama’s firefighter is downloading the design of a burning building on to a handheld device, not knocking on a neighbour’s door to plug a laptop into the local fibre network. In fact, they would probably download it in the fire truck on the way to the building.

The point Martin is making is that wireless technology is more accessible than fibre infrastructure, and I agree with him. As the member for Paterson I am often travelling throughout my electorate. Further, when I am away on shadow portfolio business I rely on the internet to stay in touch with constituents via email. Using my Blackberry or my iPad, both utilising wireless technology, allows me the freedom to do what I do. There are no cables and no compatibility issues; you just turn on your device and you are connected to the digital world. That is of extreme value to consumers, and that is why the best internet plan for Australia should be a mix of technologies, not a restrictive fibre network which will cost billions of dollars to deliver to 93 per cent of premises regardless of their needs.

Today’s consumers do not want to have to plug in. They want to connect wirelessly with the push of a button from wherever they are, regardless of whether they are sitting at a table, standing in line waiting for a coffee or on the street watching for their bus. That is why new products on the market, such as the iPad, do not even have a standard cable socket through which to connect to cable internet. How does the government explain the increase in the number of households that have mobile phones only? The fixed line is a restrictive and dying trend, and the figures back this up. According to a Telstra report on 29 September 2010, its wireless broadband business grew 109 per cent per year over three years. In just one financial year, between 2009 and 2010, the number of wireless broadband subscribers in Australia rose from two million to 3.5 million, and that does not even include smart phones.

Do we really want to be building a cable network when the rest of the world is going wireless? One answer we have been given by the Gillard Labor government concerns the physical delivery of the NBN. We know that some cables will go underground, while others will need to be placed overhead. This raises serious concerns for my constituents, who deserve to know how their properties and those nearby will be affected. If Labor is determined to push ahead with its NBN, the legislation package needs to be tightened to ensure full public accountability.

When governments deliver infrastructure it is crucial that the right balance is struck between the delivery of services and the physical location of any structures. Failure to do so creates anxiety for the local community. Public consultation must therefore take place. One need only look at the current situation in Corlette, in my electorate of Paterson, to see what I am talking about. In Corlette, Telstra has proposed to build a new mobile phone tower on Port Stephens Council land. Many nearby residents of the planned tower only found out about the development application through a letter sent by council little more than a week before comments were due. Further, council’s submission period was over the Christmas holidays, when the majority of residents were either dealing with family matters or away on holidays. As a result, dozens of people have contacted my office furious, frustrated and upset. After a phone call to council, the submission period was extended by one week. However, more needs to be done to ensure the public has its full and rightful say in public infrastructure projects such as this.

The Labor government must heed the lessons of the past. 2011 appears to be the year of big new taxes. If the Gillard Labor government gets its way, we will have a flood tax, a carbon tax and a mining tax—and it is only February. Prime Minister Gillard and Mr Swan have to resort to these taxes because they cannot manage the money they already have. They took a $20 billion surplus, which we the coalition worked hard to save for a rainy day, and wasted it. Then they worked us into a massive national debt which will peak at $94.4 billion according to the latest Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

Simply put, taxpayers cannot afford to fund a $50 billion broadband network—not when they are crying out for basic improvements in health, roads and other areas, and especially not when a wireless OPEL network that would have required less than $1 billion from the government would have been completed by mid-2009. In my electorate of Paterson a tiny fraction of that $50 billion would pay for the road upgrades that are desperately needed to protect lives on the Bucketts Way and the Lakes Way and on the roads between Paterson, Vacy and Gresford, between Nelson Bay and Fingal Bay and on main road 301.

A tiny fraction of that money would deliver the life-saving medical equipment needed by patients in my electorate, such as dialysis machines and a chemotherapy unit at Forster-Tuncurry and more public hospital beds on the Tomaree Peninsula. A tiny fraction of that money would deliver the digital television upgrades we so desperately need to guarantee the delivery of local news, advertising, entertainment and community announcements. Labor has delivered none of these things because, as we are told, there is no federal funding available. That is why Labor needs to re-examine its NBN and offer us a more cost-effective solution to our broadband needs that combines the use of wireless and fibre.

A paper released on 9 February this year by the Economist Intelligence Unit, one of the world’s most respected research organisations, shows that the NBN will cost Australian taxpayers 24 times as much as the scheme in South Korea. Despite the excessive cost, it will deliver only one-10th of the speed. The Australian newspaper explained the report in further detail in its 9 February article:

The report assesses the plans of 40 countries to enable high speed broadband development, assessing the target speeds, rollout time frame, cost and regulatory provisions to deliver a final ranking.

The research body marks Australia down in its government broadband index because of “the huge cost to the public sector” of the NBN.

It also loses points due to limited private-sector involvement, high government intervention and the exclusion of state and municipal authorities from the plan.

The report highlights the disparity between the cost of the network - estimated at 7.6 per cent of annual government revenue - and the cost of the South Korean network, which is estimated at less than one per cent.

The report does score the NBN highly for having a target speed of 100 megabits per second, but it says Sweden, Finland, Estonia and France have all set similar targets with much lower costs.

Cleary even international commentators are aware of the Gillard Labor government’s waste.

There are many questions that remain regarding the NBN, as I have detailed today. Until those answers are provided to the people of Paterson and the Australian public in general, the NBN should be put on hold. That is why the public works and public authority exemptions within this legislation need to be erased. We cannot afford any reduction in the ability of parliament to publicly scrutinise NBN Co. When the Labor government was elected last year, Prime Minister Gillard promised that it would be an open, honest and accountable government. I call on her to deliver on that promise. The task should be simple if she has nothing to hide.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In making my contribution to this debate on the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the cognate bill, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010, my mind turns to an email from a Chifley constituent and Woodcroft resident, Christopher Jadhav, who writes:

I am writing to bring to your attention the plight of the residents of Woodcroft regarding bad internet connections. Telstra has not bothered to invest in infrastructure and therefore we are unable to get cable or ADSL2 connections. Also for some unknown reason we cannot connect to other providers and we are the mercy of whatever Telstra will provide us at an exorbitant and uncompetitive price. Woodcroft is the only suburb which is disadvantaged as far as internet connectivity is concerned … could you please look into this at the earliest and raise this issue in Parliament and get it sorted.

This is not the first time that I have raised in this place the plight of Woodcroft residents, who are trying to get something that is becoming an increasingly important feature of modern living: reliable, high-speed communication and information access via the net. Only a few weeks later, last month, I received the details of a petition that residents were sufficiently moved to go around their neighbourhood and prepare. It states:

We are living in Woodcroft for a long time but we are disadvantaged by a slow internet connection at a higher price, normally $40 to $50 for ADSL2+ landline, but here, up to $90 to $100 for ADSL1. Telstra is having a monopoly in this area and we don’t have any other provider with cables in Woodcroft, where only secondary loops are available, no primary loops. We pay double the amount paid by customers in other areas and we don’t get access for ADSL2. We would like to have your kind attention about this issue. Some of our friends working in software jobs left this area due to slow speed of internet and some of our friends are thinking to leave. Please take action to stop years of rip-off.

That is signed by 17 neighbours who got together because they were frustrated by the lack of access. I want those residents to know not just that their concerns are heard but that I will do what I can in this place and elsewhere to stand up for them and ensure they get some sort of help, having been failed in the past by a former government who had no ability to solve this problem. This week I, along with the member for Greenway, will be meeting with NBN Co. to press the case for Woodcroft residents along with residents of Greenway.

I am pleased to say that residents in Chifley have the potential to benefit from being amongst the first wave of Australians able to access the NBN, after the government announced last year that Riverstone would form the centre of a second release site in New South Wales, specifically within Western Sydney. Potentially 3,000 homes will be connected. This rollout cannot come quickly enough, with residents across generations united in their desire to get access to superfast internet. At this point I would like to recognise the work of two special groups in Chifley who are helping older Australians connect with the net: Blacktown Computer Pals and the Rooty Hill and Districts Seniors Computing Club. Those groups have said to me they would love to see the benefits promised by the NBN.

These bills build on the historic reforms that the House agreed upon at the conclusion of the 2010 sittings. The companies bill sets up a framework for the operation and legal status of the NBN. It also puts in place mechanisms for potential private ownership. The access arrangements bill makes the necessary adjustments to competition laws to ensure the NBN can be the platform for open and non-discriminatory access to retail carriers using its wholesale services. This legislation provides something that we have been lacking for years—the ability for competition to grow from the basis of a uniform, wholesale network. We really have to stand and congratulate the government on this legislation.

While the rest of the country relishes the prospect of gaining the superfast internet access enjoyed by many other countries, there is one group determined to do whatever they can to block the community’s access to this infrastructure—not for the national interest but for their own political interest. That group is the coalition. I can understand the Liberal Party doing their best to stop the NBN. It proves yet again that they have no interest in meeting the infrastructure needs of Western Sydney residents. But I am surprised at hearing the Nationals’ lemming-like support of the coalition approach to ‘demolish the NBN’, as the Leader of the Opposition has stated. It is, frankly, astounding. Regional Australia knows superfast internet access is critical to ensure that the regions enjoy tapping into an infrastructure that their city cousins have enjoyed for years.

My friend the member for Throsby highlighted some of the views of the media from a vibrant region of New South Wales, the Illawarra. The Illawarra Mercury, a great newspaper—despite its misplaced and frenzied support for the Illawarra Hawks NBL team—told it like it is on the coalition’s position:

Malcolm Turnbull is off the pace if he thinks the Australian people will accept a tiered system of broadband connection in which regional and suburban residents are treated as second class citizens.

I continue to quote from this devastating editorial:

… in his (the Member for Wentworth) view town centres should get a super-fast internet connection at 100 megabits per second, while those logging on in the ‘burbs are forced to settle for a slower rate.

There it is in a nutshell: the coalition defending haves at the expense of have nots. So what is the coalition’s preferred position? They do not want to rely on fibre, which hands down is the fastest way to deliver the internet. They recommend a method of internet delivery that would relegate residents in suburban and regional areas to being, as described earlier, second-class citizens. The coalition want residents in suburban and regional areas to rely upon wireless and HFC. People react vigorously to this. These are just some of the comments from people on Twitter and Facebook who have written on my page:

I have heard them say that fibre to the home is too costly and we’d be better off with wireless, because it is cheaper and faster. How the hell—

and these are quotes direct from the public—

can wireless ever be quicker than a hardwired connection?

Wireless is awful.

Bring on the NBN.

Wireless can only do so much.

Wireless is so damn slow.

The NBN—

I hasten to add that these comments from the general public, expressing their frustration—

can’t come soon enough. I just moved to the Central Coast and I was nearly bullied by Telstra into going wireless because of a lack of ports on the exchange. I ended up having my way with them. Wireless is not answer. I cannot stress this enough.

There are other people who live in city areas who say:

I live in Sydney’s CBD and wireless does not work at my house at all. The only way I can access internet is by ADSL. Why don’t they realise that the majority of us want it. Just because they did bugger-all for so long.

These are the comments straight from the public. They know wireless is a second-class option. Consumers cannot stand it. It clogs up when many users in one area are trying to get onto it. HFC faces the same hurdles if multiple connections exist in the one household, which is likely, given that it is used to deliver Foxtel.

Notably, not even the coalition believe in the viability of wireless to deliver superfast internet connections:

No wireless broadband technology is able to handle the data rates of the best wireline technologies but there are many situations where the latter cannot yet be used or is simply unavailable (such as remote and regional areas and even in some suburban metro areas).

That is from the report Connecting Australia! Wireless broadband delivered in 2002 by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Its chair was the member for Sturt, now the Manager of Opposition Business. Wireless has its place where fixed line is difficult to roll out. It is great when you are on the go and away from home. People using iPads with 3G capacity, just like the one I am using here today, will testify to that. But would one ever seriously believe that it would be the main technology platform on which we would deliver reliable access for residents, particularly those I have the honour of representing in this place? The general community knows the limitations of wireless technology. Even the coalition in government recognised the limitations. So why have they taken the position they have? Because, to paraphrase Sydney Morning Herald columnist Peter Hartcher’s reflections on why the coalition opposed the flood levy, even when they have a history of using levies themselves, he nailed it when he said it reflected opportunism—bare, naked, unashamed opportunism. And who loses out? Western Sydney residents and the regional residents mentioned by the Illawarra Mercury.

The coalition has used a variety of sham arguments to undermine the case, need and process for building the NBN. Some of them, frankly, are elitist. Other arguments they use here do not even stack up against their own performance in their own electorates. For example, in the electorate that the member for Wentworth represents, you do not hear too many complaints about lack of internet access. In fact it has some of the best access in the country.

You have heard me highlight the poor position of the constituents of Chifley. So we have an inequity—that digital divide—that we are trying to address in this government. The member for Wentworth says it costs too much money, we need cost-benefit analysis and we need Productivity Commission reports—all this to find some way to relegate us to an option that makes us ‘second-class citizens’ in the western suburbs. Sometimes, government infrastructure is going to cost money. We have to make choices. We are doing this for the good of those jammed in the digital divide. There has been significant market failure, so much so that the other side tried to address that failure 19 times and came up short 19 times. We are fixing this once and for all.

I want to see if word matches deed when it comes to the member for Wentworth. People know I used to have the honour of representing postal workers in this country through a previous role. I often fought tooth and nail to protect jobs and conditions. I was happy recently to see support from unlikely quarters: from the members for Bradfield and Wentworth. I almost wanted to bestow on them honorary membership of my old union, the CEPU! I turn the House’s attention to a terrific article featuring the member for Wentworth. It is a great photo. He has no tie and his sleeves are rolled up. I like the fact that he has no tie on. It is a good touch, knowing my distaste of quite an old style of fashion. He is out there mixing it up in the crowd. The title of this article is ‘Don’t close it down’. It basically goes on about the member for Wentworth standing up, and rightly so as the local member, for his local post office. He took delivery of a petition. This is from the Wentworth Courier 12 January 2011:

“Woollahra also has a larger than average percentage of older people who rely on its services,” he said.

The article states his saying:

Australia Post must balance making a profit against its public service obligations. Since the post office is part of a network and not an individual business this makes it possible.

I do not have a problem, obviously, with government’s investing in public infrastructure and services, but I am consistent. Based on what the member for Wentworth said on the NBN, I think he would want to be the same. After being projected to lose $160,000 this year, Australia Post wanted to close the Woollahra Post Office in the seat of Wentworth. That post office had lost nearly $400,000—nearly half a million—over three years. What was the member for Wentworth’s reaction? Again, off with the tie, roll up the sleeves and out in the public domain demanding it remain open. He never asked for a cost-benefit analysis for that, could not find demand for a Productivity Commission report and there was no cheap advice of accepting a second-class option. There he is demanding the government wear the half a million dollar loss.

Why do we have to bear that hypocrisy of telling Western Sydney residents that they have unrealistic expectations for wanting the internet in their neighbourhood while the member for Wentworth rails against the shutdown of a service in eastern Sydney. Be consistent. If it is good enough for your constituents, why isn’t it good enough for the residents of Chifley, Greenway, Lindsay, Prospect and Werriwa? Do not stand in the way of technology that can aid and enhance the lives of residents in Western Sydney because you are putting the opportunism and self-interest of the coalition ahead of the nation’s interests and the next generation of Australians, no matter where they live.

Some of the other quotes that have gone into this debate have been pearlers. The member for Bradfield asked, ‘Why did the government walk away from its initial proposal on fibre to the node?’ We know why: because, when the bids went out, Telstra put out a deficient five-page bid that signalled, for all intents and purposes, that the main company in this country was not serious about broadband, and we had to examine another way to deliver a wholesale platform that would deliver results for residents. We had the member for Paterson advocating support for wireless technology on the one hand but then arguing about mobile phone towers in his electorate. How does he expect wireless to be delivered? This is what constitutes the great thinking of those opposite.

What about ‘the US is going wireless’? The reason it went wireless is that the ideological brethren of the opposition, the Republican Party, opposed the plan to provide fibre to homes. And we heard, ‘Not enough examination or reports’. How many reports do they want? We have had implementation studies and we have had reports released last year. At the end of the day, it is not about reports; it is the fact that they do not have a report that they like. The other thing about this claim of national security that was brought up by the member for Forrest is that that was the one that was peddled around by Telstra when they were trying to spook everyone about the government trying to get into the space of actually providing a wholesale network that could not be provided by Telstra and that was the subject of 19 failed plans.

The opposition, as has been remarked by this side, do not have a plan. They are trying to stop people from getting access to a technology that the rest of the world enjoys. They need to recognise the huge demand for these services. They need to get out of the way and let us get on with the job that they were simply unable to do themselves.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak tonight on the debate on the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and a related bill. It is fair to say that this is an example of what this government has not done well. I thought it was highlighted very nicely today by the member for Fraser’s motion, which I was able to speak on—that is, that this policy is not about an evidence based policy approach to politics. For those who do not remember, this policy was born out of an attempt in 2007 to paint the then Leader of the Opposition, the member for Griffith, as modern, new and someone who understood the challenges of the future more than the then Prime Minister did. So they came up with this great broadband promise, in about April 2007, which was for 12 megabits per second for 98 per cent of Australia, using fibre-to-the node technology. At the time, many said that was not possible to implement. But, given the electoral circumstances of that year, it was a policy that was quite popular. It was no doubt part of the reason that the government changed in November 2007—much to the worse, unfortunately, for our country.

In government, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and the Prime Minister looked to see whether they could put together this politically based promise that was part of an election advertising campaign that was very well crafted, and they could not possibly put the policy together. So it had to be changed—it had to be reformed; it had to work; it had to be put into something that could possibly be implemented. The only face-time the minister could possibly get with the former Prime Minister was on a VIP flight to Perth, which was a 3½- or four-hour trip on the VIP. So we saw the minister rushing with his bags to climb up the stairs of the VIP to get up there with the then Prime Minister. This is an experience that many on the other side commented on, off the record, prior to the events of June last year. On that VIP plane they decided that, instead of spending $6 billion, they would pluck a figure out of the air, so they said, ‘Let’s spend $40 billion. Let’s build fibre to the premise. Let’s grab the beer coaster on the VIP and we’ll put a business case together on how this will work and then we’ll make an announcement about it.’ That was the next stage of the political promise to ensure that they looked like they were all for the future.

What you hear from those on the other side in this debate—and you just heard it from the member for Chifley and I am sure you will hear it from the warrior himself over there, the member for Wakefield, who is out at the doors every morning banging on the party lines these days, and it is good for his career that he is doing that—is that the only way that you can have broadband in this country is to support the NBN and the only way that you believe in fast broadband is by supporting the government’s plan to have 100 megabits per second to 93 per cent of the country delivered to the home. Of course, that is simply not true. The fact is that, even on the government’s own assumptions, the demand for those sorts of speeds will just not be there. The NBN Co. business plan forecasts that two-thirds of users will be paying for speeds no higher than today’s top ADSL2+ 25 megabits per second.

That makes complete sense, because people want to access broadband for different purposes. There are some in the community who want to have fixed-line broadband with very fast speeds, because they download and upload at such a pace that they need that extra capability. But the vast bulk of people in the community do not need or want that sort of speed. They do not want to be driving a Ferrari in a 50 zone. They do not want to spend the $40 billion or $50 billion that is required to deliver this network that the government says will get to 93 per cent of the country—which I do not think it ever will. The government simply thought it seemed like a good promise to make people believe that they are for the future to contrast with us on the other side.

On the other hand, what Australia needs is a mixture of technology. In certain places we need fast speed and access to fast speed. There is a place for fibre in this mix but, undoubtedly, people want the ability to be portable. You see it with the devices that are driving the market today. You see it with nearly everyone in this chamber in question time who taps away on an iPad or an iPhone or uses some sort of portable tablet or laptop as they move around the country. What is driving the uptake is mobile technology. Spending $40 billion on a fixed network is picking winners at the cost of the Australian taxpayer. It is not that this technology will be outdated. I do not think fibre technology will be outdated. Fibre technology will be part of the picture but it is just not required for every home in this country—not that it will get to every home.

That brings me to the next point: delivery. My electorate of Mayo, as I am sure you are aware, Madam Deputy Speaker Livermore, takes in the Adelaide Hills, the Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Some in this House have very close connections to parts of my electorate. It is an outer metro area that is affected badly in some parts by lack of access to broadband. There has been underinvestment in electorates like mine and that of Parliamentary Secretary Marles at the table, where there has not been the demand for the services or the uptake of the services in the past. So there needs to be investment in these areas. However, the likelihood that the Adelaide Hills Council is going to allow overhead cables to deliver fibre to the home in the Adelaide Hills or, indeed, the Fleurieu Peninsula is less than zero. If you do not accept that will not happen, the case is then about digging the trenches to install the fibre in parts of the country like mine, and that becomes even more outrageously expensive than what is on the table today. So the likelihood that my electorate and areas in the country which have problems with broadband will benefit from the scheme is ridiculously low.

In other words, you need a mixture of approaches to fix the issue. You certainly need government intervention in some parts of our country to fix the problems, and there is no doubt that in parts of my electorate you need government intervention to ensure that problems are fixed. There are problems in Scott Creek, for instance; there are problems in Norton Summit; there are problems in Basket Range. There are problems in areas which have challenges with topography and distance from the exchange. Those are the areas which need investment in either improving the exchanges or upgrading the capability for wireless technology. But it is beyond the realm of belief that a town like Birdwood in my electorate will have this system built to it. It just does not make economic sense and it will never happen. It sounds like a wonderful promise and it sounds exactly like what people would want—‘We want 100 megs per second. That sounds brilliant. This will be great’—but the fact of the matter is that most people do not want that. They want access to reliable, decent-speed broadband so they can do what they want to do. That is what the parliament should be focusing on. We should not be trying to build everyone a Ferrari to drive in 50-kilometre zones. We should be investing in areas which require the investment and having the right settings so that the market looks after those areas which do not need the government investment. Those on the other side would say, ‘That didn’t work previously,’ and to some degree they are right. There was a problem with the structure of the system and I believe very strongly that that should have been addressed by previous governments, including the former government. However, that does not mean that you waste $40 billion or $50 billion by building an asset that is not required throughout the country.

The additional problems we have—and I think the member for Wentworth has focused on some very well thought through amendments—is the lack of transparency and the inability of the parliament to look at the spend. If you hold it up against what the government have done you will see the double standard in relation to the transparency they are applying to the Queensland flood reconstruction, which will cost about $5 billion. They have appointed a former Liberal to oversee the spend. We are talking about an investment of about $50 billion and yet there will not be any parliamentary oversight. They have excluded any oversight by this place of that spend.

It beggars belief that a government with a record of wasting money, as it does, whether it be through the BER debacles that we see on the front pages of the national papers day after day, the Green Loans program, the Jobs Fund or, the creme de la creme, the pink batts debacle—we have seen so many stories about waste and mismanagement by this government—would not have much more detailed consideration of the spend. Therefore, it is appropriate that the member for Wentworth’s amendment deals with issues to make it much more open to scrutiny so that we can see how the money is being spent and can try and ensure that it is not being wasted along the way. It is a very important amendment and I am sure that the government, if it were open, honest and serious with the Australian people, would adopt it.

I will finish where I started, and that is on the issue about evidence based policy. The initial and continued promise in relation to fast broadband is a political ploy. It is not about giving access to people who do not currently have access to broadband. That can be fixed and it should be fixed. This is about making the Labor Party seem like they are the party of the future and are au fait with technology. They will use language like: it is necessary for our economic development; that this is the only way forward; and that we have to have this investment or we will be left behind. The truth of the matter is that most small businesses do not need 100 megabits per second, do not want 100 megabits per second; they want access to reliable broadband with decent speeds. That is where we should be focusing our attention, not on this massive overspend that this government are proposing.

This is a very dangerous piece of legislation. It is a very dangerous path for the government to be proceeding down, given their record in relation to spending of Commonwealth money. At the very least, the proposed amendments that the member for Wentworth has tabled, particularly in relation to the scrutiny of that money, should be considered.

There is no doubt as we go forward that investment in technology in this country is hugely important for the future of our economy. Both sides of parliament must be and are focused on that. The debate is not about whether we believe we should have decent broadband access and speeds. We believe that. We are committed to that. We have a plan to do that. We have a plan to fix the problem areas that should be addressed that are not being addressed, and there are many. They sit in electorates like mine.

We do not accept this argument from the government that you need to spend $50 billion of taxpayers’ money building a network that the vast majority of people will never want or need. It is overspending on something that does not need that much money spent on it to make it a good, reliable, fast network which can be used and accessed by all Australians. We need a mixture of technologies to go into the future; we do not need this massive investment in just one of those technologies at the expense of other choices.

This is a political plan by a government that is desperate to run politics rather than policy. This is not an evidence based policy decision, as the member for Fraser talked about earlier today. This is not a government committed to that evidence based policy; it is a government committed to its politics. It is a government committed to having lines at the next election campaign and, in that sense, we oppose the approach on this issue.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened carefully to the contribution from the member for Mayo, the rebellious member for Mayo. We know that he is persona non grata these days in the Liberal Party for his outspoken advocacy on industrial relations and Work Choices. He must be commended for his candour on that front, his policy vigour. If only John Howard had put him in charge of broadband instead of Work Choices, who knows what the result could have been? We might not have had the failures of the previous government. He was frank about the failures: 18 broadband plans over 12 years and, at the end of it, people in my electorate—not just people out in the country, not just people out in towns like Riverton, Clare or Kapunda but also people in suburbs like Craigmore and Hillbank, vast suburban communities of 8,000 people—stuck on dial-up in suburban Adelaide.

We are not talking about the back of Bourke; we are talking about suburbs in our capital cities. It beggars belief to hear the member for Mayo get up and say his constituents will not want these services. I do not know where he gets it from. It is an extraordinary statement to say that people in Birdwood or Mount Torrens, where my mother lives, will not want these services. I find it extraordinary for him to say that about his constituents. Wherever I go in my electorate, people are clamouring for broadband services, and they do not ask for the bare minimum; they want broadband services that are going to back this country into the future just like the member for Mayo said.

The National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010 are about shrinking the tyranny of distance in this country. There is no doubt about it: that tyranny has been with us a long time. I remember my days in high school where we had to study half a year of legal studies and half a year of geography because there were not enough kids in the class to justify having both classes run. That would not happen under e-education opportunities. We know that the tyranny of distance strikes the country areas hardest of all. We know that this bill is about shrinking that through superfast broadband infrastructure.

These bills are about establishing the Commonwealth’s ownership and eventual sale of NBN Co. and providing a level regulatory playing field for our infrastructure and superfast broadband. It is an important bit of legislation because it brings before this House the infrastructure that is going to pave the way to do all that. As I said before, I know how important this is because of places like Craigmore and Hillbank, places where they could not get broadband. I vividly remember going and talking to telecommunications providers about why a place like Craigmore, with 8,000 people, could not get anything but dial-up or wireless. It was explained to me that upgrading the exchange was not economical; that Telstra would not get enough customers out of it; and that no-one else was prepared or in a position to upgrade that infrastructure. We had industry failure. We had market failure and we had Howard government failure.

Obviously, we do not want that failure to continue. Part of our commitment, part of what this legislation establishes, is for NBN Co. to provide 93 per cent of Australian premises with fibre based services and seven per cent or so with next generation wireless and satellite technology, subject to the final design. That means that areas like Riverton, which lies on the Barrier Highway in my electorate, will be able to get fibre-to-the-home. It is an important opportunity for those towns because we will not be able to foresee the demands in those towns necessarily. I think business cases always tend to be a little conservative on this front. I suspect we will find that over time demand will grow rather than diminish.

We know currently our country lags well behind in the broadband stakes. We know currently we are ranked some 29th out of 50 countries for an average connection speed of 2.6 megabits. We know that no Australian city is in the top 100 for average internet connection speed. That poor comparison does not bode well for Australia’s reputation as an advanced Western economy. It does not bode well for our future when we know that productivity will be based more and more on information technology, creative industries and harnessing people’s imagination.

Some commentators and some on the Liberal side say this is all about playing computer games a bit faster, but in fact computer games are now a massive industry—bigger than the motion picture industry and that gives you some idea of human creativity. We only have to look at e-books and the like to know that more and more information will be online and more and more of our creative endeavours will be online. We also know that there will be more and more demand on the systems, not just in relation to downloads but also in relation to uploads. Uploading will be increasingly important as people, through business and other creative endeavours, put more and more information and content on the internet.

I recently read in the Economist about phone services in Africa. Some of these countries now have vast mobile networks and no fixed networks because eventually a technology came along that allowed them to get around not building a fixed network. They had 60 or 70 years without any telephone services and, of course, that retarded their economic and social growth. Not having phones was a pretty big deal in Africa until mobile technology came along. That is really at the heart of the opposition’s position. They say, ‘Let’s wait and eventually a new technology will come along.’ We know that might be a long way over the horizon, a long time indeed. Having told us to wait for the 12 years they were in government, they now want to put it off into the distance—so we will be like Nigeria, Kenya or somewhere like that for broadband services down the track. You can see that happening as the Liberal Party desperately wait for some new technology to emerge. I do not think that we should do that; I think we should act on the best available information that we have—that is, that fibre to the household is the best way to go.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why is that better than 4G?

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moncrieff keeps putting forward the tired old arguments of the opposition, ‘Wait, there is this new technology’—and it has suddenly emerged in the last three years; it did not happen in the 12 years they were in government. All we had was market failure, regulatory failure and government failure. That is what we had for the 12 years they were in power and that is what the Liberal Party will promise for the future.

Only Labor has a plan that will accommodate this nation’s demands into the future. The Liberal Party will deny, obstruct and delay, endlessly pushing it off into the future and claiming the 4G network would be better—or maybe it will be 5G, 6G or 7G. Maybe somewhere down the track there will be a wonderful wireless network or some other technology that will resolve the Liberal Party’s problem, which is that they do not want to put in place a decent broadband service for this country. We saw this time and time again in my electorate. I remember talking to a journalist who was commuting to Sydney from Adelaide every week because she could not get broadband in her house in Hillbank.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Couldn’t get broadband? What is her name?

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is true: that is what she was doing, as she could only get dial-up in her house.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members will stop interjecting.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an interesting story. She met her husband in Iraq. He was a member of the South Australian police. They got married, moved to Adelaide and lived in his house in Hillbank. They could not get broadband so she was commuting every week to do her job. These are things that my constituents tell me; they are no laughing matter. For 12 years, the member for Moncrieff and others laughed, joked, denied, obfuscated, delayed and never came up with a solution. They had 18 plans over the years. There was a denial of services and they never got around to fixing the problem. Time and time again they said, ‘There’s a solution, but just wait.’ We know who suffers when this happens. It is people in the suburbs and people in country towns.

I am stunned that members of the National Party would come into this place and say, ‘Just rely on the market to fix the problem. Just rely on some new wonderful technology which the private sector will bring to you.’ We know that that will not happen. We know that delaying, wishing this problem into the never-never and hoping for some future nirvana, is an approach that did not work in the past. It did not work during the Howard years and it is unlikely to work in the future, and that is why those opposite keep losing on this issue. They keep banging on and raising all these objections to the system because they do not have anything positive to say about it, they do not have a record to run on and they do not have a plan for the future. Personally, I think it does not win them one vote and, more importantly, it does not serve their constituents very well.

We had the situation where the National Party were all for this, right up until Barnaby Joyce became their Senate leader. Then he did a complete 180-degree turn and said he was against it. All of sudden there is some spurious reason for not backing it; that is the truth. Why? It is because he is appealing to the short-term conservative thinking of asking, ‘Why would we do this?’ If we listened to those opposite, roads would have been too expensive—the original phone would have been too expensive. They would have been here saying, ‘Why do farmers need phones?’ That is basically the tenor of their argument. And if they were back in Roman times, they would have been saying, ‘Why does the empire need aqueducts; we don’t need aqueducts. Who needs water? Who needs sewerage?’

For every great bit of infrastructure, you could count on the opposition to find some reason to oppose it, to find some reason not to do it, to find some reason to delay it and to find some reason to say, ‘We don’t need it.’ Of course, once it is in put in place, then we will not hear about those issues anymore. They will be the greatest supporters of it ever known, and they will hope that the speeches that they gave in this place with this short-termism, this ostrich-like behaviour, will be ignored. They will hope that they were not seen to be standing in the way of the future.

This government will press on with our legislation. It is important legislation for the future and it is well-balanced legislation for the future. It is legislation that provides the backbone for our important National Broadband Network, a network that will serve all of my constituents well, whether they are in the suburbs or if they are in country towns to the north of Gawler. It is an incredibly important program for this country and I commend it to the House.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While sitting in here during the last contribution from the member for—

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wakefield!

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wakefield, thank you—I realised something. It was a moment that crystallised in my mind what this NBN is about for the Australian Labor Party and the government. It is the chance for all of the Labor members to stand up and channel their inner Fidel Castro. You can see them come into the chamber and metaphorically put their little soap box underneath their feet, stand up, stroke their goatee and start dispensing wisdom about what a great nation-building project this will be. That is what we are getting from the Labor members opposite: the chance to channel Fidel Castro.

I hope that the member for Wakefield’s children—I am not sure if he is a father yet, but if he is not, I hope that God blesses him with children—read his contribution because in the decades to come my child—and, as I said, the children I hope the member for Wakefield is blessed with—will be able to understand the contribution that the member opposite made to a $50 billion spending commitment by the Australian government. And they should understand how facile a contribution it was, like so many others from that side are, because they will be paying the debt off for decades. For decades it will be future generations of Australians that are paying off the grand vision of Australia.

The former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, was a great one when it came to big, bold plans. He was not very good at following through and he was not very good at making sure that what was being proposed actually made a hell of a lot of sense, but he was great on the sell. They say in marketing, ‘Sell the sizzle, not the sausage’, and that is what we had from the Australian Labor Party at the last election and prior to that, when this grand scheme which, according to folklore, was developed between the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, and the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, on the back of an envelope aboard a VIP. It seems very appropriate that a $50 billion exercise that is going to commit generations of Australians to debt and deficit should have been devised on the back of an envelope inside a VIP, because this entire project completely reeks of the fiscal incompetence that has become the hallmark of this federal Labor government.

We have a number of fascinating aspects to the bill before the House today, the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010, and they underscore the approach of this government when it comes to NBN Co. What we know is that this is, for all intents and purposes, going to be the single largest building project of its kind that the world has ever seen. Only a matter of a month or two ago, the President of the United States rose in the United States Congress for his State of the Nation address, and he outlined a bold vision and a plan. There are a lot of similarities between a lot of the rhetoric we hear from members opposite—from government members pathetically trying to justify this massive expenditure—and what the President of the United States said. However, there was a key difference between his approach and the approach of Labor members opposite—and this was coming from a president who has presided over a massive blow-out in their debt-to-GDP ratio in the United States. That was that in the United States, in relative terms, their investment in providing high-speed broadband to their people is about 165th, according to most media comments, of what this government is doing in this country. He outlined his plan, which was built on 4G wireless technology.

Members opposite get up and wax lyrical about how nothing happened for 12 years under the coalition and all of this absolute rot—and it is absolute rubbish, because 12 years ago, although the internet did exist, it was nothing on what it is today. Let me inform members opposite, if they do not know already, that there is a reason why they talk about Web 2.0—it has been the evolution of the internet. Indeed, it has evolved from what originally started out as effectively what they called internet relay chat, or IRC, and some very limited components of the internet in terms of multimedia in the early 1990s to what it is today in 2011. And we have no idea where it is going to go. In another 10 or 20 years it will be even more profound than it has been over the last 10 or 20 years.

To hear members opposite start to rave on about how nothing happened for 12 years deserves the contempt of the Australian people. I sit here on this side of the chamber and I listen with contempt as I hear members opposite speak in these glib terms about ‘investing’—so-called—$50 billion of taxpayers’ money ‘after nothing happened for 12 years’. What absolute rubbish! Members opposite have an obligation to future generations of Australians to put a more compelling case—rather than to simply throw up these kinds of stupid lines, frankly—because what the government is looking at doing through this legislation is entrenching a monopoly in this country. It will hand to NBN Co. effectively the single greatest telecommunications monopoly this country has ever seen. It is a massive regressive step, and it comes at a huge cost to Australians as they will be paying off for decades the debt associated with this so-called vision from those opposite.

The coalition are not exactly being unreasonable with our proposal. Fundamentally, there is one aspect of the proposal we are driving forward that we are asking the government to listen to. We are saying: subject this to a cost-benefit analysis. What is so outrageous from a public policy perspective about asking for this $50 billion, or thereabouts, of expenditure to be subjected to a cost-benefit analysis? The answer—from any right-thinking, straight down the line, ordinary Australian—would be, ‘Nothing,’ because there is nothing outrageous about subjecting this to a cost-benefit analysis.

There is nothing outrageous about saying to this out-of-control government that a $50 billion spending initiative should perhaps go before the Productivity Commission and that we should ask the Productivity Commission to make a decision about whether or not this expenditure, which our children will be paying off for decades, is the right expenditure. Members opposite should hang their heads in shame, because it is one thing to have people lock in behind a government policy but an entirely different thing when that policy involves such an exorbitant waste of money.

I am sure I am not letting the cat out of the bag when I say that, if the Productivity Commission and the cost-benefit analysis said, ‘Yes; this is definitely the way to go and this taxpayer subsidy should be rolled out,’ the coalition would probably support it. I am sure it is not that radical to say that. But you know what? We all know that that is not going to happen, and the reason it is not going to happen is that it is economic madness, sheer economic lunacy, for the government to pursue this agenda—and that is the reason they are avoiding scrutiny at all costs.

The Labor Party do not want scrutiny on NBN Co. before the Productivity Commission. The Labor Party do not want scrutiny of NBN Co. when it comes to freedom of information laws, which is why NBN Co. is structured the way it is in the legislation. The Labor Party do not want scrutiny of NBN Co. by the parliament’s Public Works Committee, and that is the reason that they have also made attempts to try to avoid any scrutiny by that committee. In essence, the Labor Party do not want scrutiny of this bill or of the whole proposal, because they know that it was a legacy promise from the former Prime Minister, now being implemented by this government, that is bereft of any notion of economic responsibility—completely devoid of any real semblance of making sure that young Australians will not have to meet this debt in the future.

Let us use a basic analogy. If you go out to dinner with a group of people it is very easy to whip out the credit card at the end of the night and say, ‘It’s all right; it’s on me.’ It is really easy if you are not the one who actually has to pay that bill. And that is precisely what we have got going on here now. We have a government that is happy to throw the card around at the end of the day and say, ‘It’s all right—I’ll pick up the tab; not a problem; don’t you worry,’ because the people who will pay the bill for this economic recklessness are the Australians of tomorrow.

We have already had a government that has racked up, in a relatively short time—three years or thereabouts—around $80 billion of net debt, and that excludes the $50 billion that NBN Co. is putting forward. The most galling aspect of this exercise is that, in a world that is rapidly evolving, a world that is shifting from fixed-line technology to wireless communications, a world where the United States President has indicated—in what is one of the most, if not the most digitally-enabled economy globally—that they are putting their resources into wireless 4G technology, we have got this government spending $50 billion and saying: ‘Trust us! It’s okay. We’re the ones with vision,’ and just blithely throwing out all manner of rhetoric about anyone who dares to question them about what they are up to.

But we know that the stakeholders who have come out in support of NBN Co. are those with the most vested in this area. The wise stakeholders have remained tight-lipped, unwilling to indicate whether they believe fixed-line communications are superior to wireless technology. But there are others, of course, who have come out and said, ‘This is brilliant; we should support it.’ And why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t Google, for example, support this rollout of technology? After all, they are going to be the beneficiaries of this technology. So why wouldn’t Google come out and say, ‘Yes, we support it; fantastic idea’? After all, it is not going to cost Google a cent, and it is all blue sky when it comes to that company. So I am not surprised that those are some of the groups that we hear from.

But the more compelling argument to me is that if you were to pin down any of the members opposite and ask them: ‘Why is it that this form of technology is superior to a wireless form of technology?’ they would be unable to answer. I would invite any members of the government following to explain why this technology is superior to 4G wireless technology. I think we will find that they will fall short and that all we will hear is glib rhetoric about how something should have happened 12 years ago because back in the year 1999-2000 you should have seen all this coming. Well, that is just rubbish.

This bill will remain an absolute testament to the manner in which this government has completely lost control when it comes to fiscal responsibility. This is not going to be Kevin Rudd’s legacy as some kind of a visionary. This is not going to be the current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard’s, testimony of her great vision. What it will be is a sign of the times as technology continues to evolve and as the world moves increasingly to wireless technology, which has been the trend for the last decade. People will look back and say, ‘We can’t believe that this is what they spent the money on that we are still paying off.’

It is almost not too much to say that this is effectively one evolution away from the fixed copper wire network. It is just a different form of technology. Fixed copper wire was visionary at the time too. This is going to be fixed fibre. No doubt Labor members have all been saying what a great vision it is. It is not, because it is just $50 billion that has to be repaid in the future when the market could have provided a solution and that is what the coalition took forward.

The far better option is to accept that there are changes that need to be made to this legislation and for Labor members opposite to concede that it should be subjected to a cost-benefit analysis. If they do not want to take my word for it, they should listen to the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, who made it clear that any proposal like this should be subjected to a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis. They should listen to their own rhetoric. Labor Party policy says, ‘We will subject any initiatives in terms of public infrastructure to a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis.’ Of course, none of us saw the asterisk that says ‘excluding the NBN’.

The Labor Party need to start living up to actually making sure that their actions match their words. They need to explain why fixed wire technology that is going to cost $50 billion should be an expense that our children should have to pay for for decades to meet some kind of bizarre vision that the Prime Minister had.

Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In listening to the member for Moncrieff I can tell that he is taking his lessons from the Leader of the Opposition. I am reminded these days of the big, bad wolf when I see the Leader of the Opposition get up—lots of huff and puff, all threat, all menace, but absolutely no plan or vision for the future.

What the member for Moncrieff was attempting to sell here today was fear on steroids—fear of technology, fear of investment and fear of the future. I say shame on him as the member for Moncrieff, shame on him for the selling short the future of those people in this country that he is supposed to be representing and shame on him for the future of the children that he certainly has a right to be proud of. What sort of opportunities do those on the opposite side offer in terms of a future that connects us into a world economy in a high-quality way using digital technology?

We understand, on this side, that we have an obligation to future generations. We want our young people to be able to participate on an equal footing with other world citizens whose governments have already positioned their people and their economies to take advantage of this technology. The member for Moncrieff asks why we cannot go ahead with wireless technology. He has not been listening. The member for Greenway made some very powerful points. It is very simple. We need a National Broadband Network to provide a backbone, a stable, speed of light backbone on which Next G and satellite can be added. It is very simple. What this technology offers is very clear to those who pay attention. Instead of the negativity of the other side, I am absolutely delighted to offer my support to this legislation which is going to enable our future.

To cast a new metaphor—this legislation is another junction box in the rollout of the NBN, which, as we all know, is the government’s most important long-term infrastructure project. It has been explained many times that the NBN will connect up to 93 per cent of all Australian homes, schools and workplaces with fibre based broadband services. The remaining premises will be served by next generation wireless and satellite broadband services. As many Labor members have consistently and persuasively argued in this chamber, the NBN will better position us to prosper in an increasingly digital world by enabling Australian businesses to compete on a global scale. I want to back Australian businesses every time, not the rhetoric of fear, misery and denial of opportunity which those opposite are offering. We have to invest in our people. We need to invest in this world-changing technology and give our people a chance.

In April 2009 the government indicated that it would legislate to establish operating, ownership and governance arrangements for NBN Co. Ltd and the regime to facilitate access to the NBN for those access seekers. The legislation achieves that. The government has consulted extensively on the legislative arrangements for NBN Co. Ltd and released exposure drafts of the bills in February 2010, and it has consulted, through the implementation study on the NBN.

As other government speakers in this debate have noted, the primary bill—the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010limits and focuses NBN Co. on wholesale only telecommunications activities, and that is consistent with its mandate. The bill sets out clearly the Commonwealth ownership arrangements and provides for the eventual sale of the Commonwealth’s stake in NBN Co. subject to parliament’s approval. The accompanying bill, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010, establishes new access, non-discrimination and transparency obligations for NBN Co. and provides a level regulatory playing field for superfast broadband infrastructure.

Members on this side of the chamber have extolled long and in detail the benefits of the NBN. Last week the member for Greenway—a person of considerable experience in the telecommunications sector, unlike many of those opposite who continue to perpetrate myths and mistruths about the opportunities that the NBN offers us—eloquently gave us some more useful context in her contribution on a matter of public importance to inform the overall debate. I noted particularly the member for Greenway’s reference to comments last year by the Broadband Commission for Digital Development. The commission has called for broadband inclusion not for some but for all. Among other things, the commission states that broadband will be:

… a “game-changer” in addressing rising healthcare costs, delivering digital education for all, and mitigating the effects of climate change.

That is a pretty good rap. And let us just get a few facts on the table here, instead of this huffing and puffing and fear of the future. The reality, also referred to by the member for Greenway, is quite simple:

A high-capacity fibre optic packet transport backbone is the fundamental backbone infrastructure that countries need to deploy to support the growth in broadband services.

We need a stable backbone. We are talking about information moving at a speed of light. We are talking about stability. We cannot deliver that with the instability that is offered by 4G. Unless it has a backbone it is not going to meet our needs. I thank the member for Greenway for her informed contribution to this debate. It is much appreciated.

All of us come to this place from different backgrounds, but with a united purpose: to take the Australian people forward. As a teacher over three decades—and, just as an aside, I do not believe anyone can ever be a former teacher; you continue to hold that role—I am thrilled at the educational prospects that the NBN will offer future generations. As with most government infrastructure initiatives, however, those opposite love them in their electorate but loathe them when it comes to this place. I wish I had a dollar—it would be a great fundraising venture, actually—for every Liberal that has been seen at a BER school event. At the last one I went to, the Liberal member for the state seat of Terrigal, Chris Hartcher, was there celebrating a brand new library at Central Coast Grammar School. What a fantastic project that is. It is linking kids into a future. It is an investment in capacity and possibilities. It is not miserly, it is not negative and it is not fear—all of the rhetoric that we keep seeing from the other side of the chamber. It is a funny thing that those who do the least want to criticise the most when it comes to delivering infrastructure for our country.

Clearly, from his comments in this debate, the member for Wentworth does not feel a burning need for reliable, superfast broadband in regional areas like the one I come from on the Central Coast. There is no matter of urgency for fast and reliable broadband in Point Piper. ‘Let them eat copper,’ I think is what the member for Wentworth is saying to the people of the Central Coast. Well, I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the people of the Central Coast are itching for fast, reliable broadband. They are ready and they are waiting. Speeds of up to one gigabyte a second will transform the way the people on the Central Coast can do business and allow our businesses to compete on a national and international stage.

I was at a great fundraiser recently, speaking with a local architect who wants to enlarge his business and do work that will be in an international context. He simply cannot advance his business in the way he wants to, which would lead to more employment in our area, because, with the current restrictions in technology, the current speeds of broadband are not sufficient for him to be able to do that sort of work. He represents a body of architects, and there are many architects who are expressing the same need for high-quality digital broadband and the capacity to transfer large pieces of information. It is the upload capacity that keeps getting left out by those opposite in their comments on the possibilities that broadband offers. The NBN will also open up a host of new applications in the fields of health and education. We have e-health consultations and virtual classrooms that will remove the tyranny of distance that affects Central Coast residents. Those opposite try to gloss over the market failure that was the legacy of the Howard government’s broadband policies. I doubt very much whether the member for Wentworth has constituents like I do who contact his office looking for solutions to their broadband access problems—although I was intrigued to hear, via the member for Chifley, about his own home-grown protectionism for snail mail in his electorate.

As the member for Greenway has pointed out, we have been overtaken by Estonia and Latvia in the broadband stakes. I was recently at a citizenship ceremony where I met a young family who had migrated to Australia from Ireland. They were delighted to become Australian citizens. The gentleman, who runs a small business of his own in property development, had spent two years in Romania. When he compared the broadband experiences he had had in Australia and in Romania he described our conditions as ‘Third World’, with the speed of the internet in Romania outstripping ours by far. That is just one testimony among many from people coming here from various countries in Europe who are used to being able to click quickly and move through. We could have productivity gains that are absolutely immeasurable in terms of the speed of opportunity for people to download, and that is without even going to the possibilities of uploading and all of the applications that it might offer creative, brave and courageous Australians who do see the future is a place we want to go to, unlike those opposite who see it as a place we should be fearful of. The member for Wentworth must know that speeds and access in other parts of the world outstrip our by many, many times. But still, for purely political reasons, he proffers solutions that would consign Australia to a Third World broadband future. That is not good enough.

The opposition failed dismally at the last election to convince the Australian public of the merits of their broadband policy, but they keep on trying to rewrite history. They keep on trying to make out that Australian people do not need reliable, superfast broadband. Regional Australians where I live—businesses, educators, health professionals—are crying out for it. Regional Australians can see the transformational capacity of broadband. They want a game-changer to make their lives better. That is why I could hardly believe my ears when the member for Cowper got up to complain about the NBN. This is the same member for Cowper who has Coffs Harbour in his electorate—the same Coffs Harbour that was announced as the hub for that region’s National Broadband Network in July last year as one of the NBN Co.’s early release sites.

The member for Cowper clearly has not been talking to Southern Cross University or the 14 councils and the local businesses who all worked hard to be one of the early release sites. They are keen as mustard on the idea. I was a little surprised at the member for Cowper’s approach. I did a quick Google search and found an intriguing article from the Coffs Coast Advocate. The article, dated 9 July last year, is titled ‘Superfast broadband to hit Coffs’, by journalist Matthew Deans. The article reads:

IN a huge boost for Coffs Harbour’s future, the city got the jump on the rest of regional NSW with the news superfast broadband is coming here next.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced yesterday Coffs Harbour has been selected for the next roll-out of the National Broadband Network.

This stunning coup will transform the region’s economic future if we capitalise on the early-adopter window of opportunity.

“This is a fantastic result for all the partners involved in the submission urging NBN Co to establish the broadband network as quickly as possible on the North Coast,” said Coffs Harbour mayor Councillor Keith Rhoades.

“The partnership of Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour City Council, the local businesses involved and our neighbouring councils has been key to persuading the company of the enormous economic and educational benefits that a high-speed broadband network would bring to the region.”

Clearly the member for Cowper is not on the same wavelength as many of the key players in his community. I know we often allege in our political debate that certain members on the other side are out of touch. But the member for Cowper is not just out of touch—he is off the planet!

I think it is pretty cheeky for him to stand up in this House and be so ungrateful for the investment that NBN Co. is putting into his electorate. That ungrateful demeanour comes in the absence, I might add, of any achievement on his part as a member of the former Liberal government for his electorate—lest we forget: the 19 failed broadband plans. I know those opposite have made some points about transparency, but what is abundantly transparent in this debate is that the opposition is trying to mitigate defeat with delay.

Again in this House we as a government find ourselves faced with a pointless, churlish attempt at opposition for opposition’s sake. As far as I am concerned, we had a referendum on the NBN last August in regional Australia. So I ask the member for Wentworth and his colleagues: please spare us and the Australian public all the strutting and fretting and the procession of irrelevant, straw-man debating points. The sooner we get on with it the better. I commend the bill to the House.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to address the National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the cognate Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010. Before I launch into my prepared speech, I must take the member for Robertson to task about the trap that this government continually falls into or that it intends as a tactic, where it paints any opposition to a particular method of policy implementation as opposition to the whole premise. In this particular case, the fact that the opposition are opposed to the National Broadband Network in its entirety does not mean we are against high broadband speeds in any way. The member for Robertson said that we must build the backbone; well, we agree with that. We must build the arteries and veins that will allow for high-speed backhaul. But that does not mean we need the capillaries. Of course, we will never quite know whether we in the opposition or the government are right in this case, because the government refuse to have a cost-benefit analysis done to discover just what the right answer is.

I recognise the need for all Australians to enjoy access to a world-class internet. It is critical to our nation’s growth and competitiveness in the world market—although at times we can forget just how much telecommunications in Australia have changed in a relatively short time. You could be forgiven for thinking that the government believe that, prior to their coming to power, we had been stuck in a time warp, using Marconi radios and carrier pigeons to communicate with each other, when in fact the changes in the telecommunications industry have been quite enormous over the last 20 years or so. Twenty years ago, we barely had mobile phones. Ten years before that, we did not have fax machines. Advances are both inevitable and inexorable.

I also deplore the government speakers who insinuate that those who do not support their version of broadband do not understand the technology or seek to deny Australians access to the technology. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that there are a large group of industry experts who do not believe that fixed line NBN delivered to the premise is the right answer for Australia and that the tertiary part of the network—that is, the fibre from the local exchange to the house—is likely to be superseded before it is completed. The great unknown is whether the projections for NBN take-up will ever be reached, considering Australia’s love affair with wireless technology. The NBN business plan predicts that, in 2025, 16.3 per cent of homes will be wireless only. I would be surprised if those figures did not prove to be very conservative. I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, that like me you are well aware of many households that do not have fixed line services now. In fact, it has been one of the main contributing factors to Telstra’s declining profits in fixed line services. The advent of superfast wireless broadband services, which will come in the next few years with the rollout of 4G services, will accelerate this abandonment of fixed line services, no matter how good they are. Indeed, we are informed that in the US 26.6 per cent of homes are already wireless only. I have not heard a cogent argument which would suggest we are not likely to follow this trend.

If that rate of leakage to wireless is repeated in Australia, the foundations of the NBN business plan will be under serious threat. Already considered an unbankable financial risk for private enterprise, the biggest financial product in Australia’s history would become the biggest white elephant in Australia’s history. I will return later to a few of these issues, but I will deal now with the proposed legislation and touch on the amendments to be moved by the member for Wentworth.

Certainly, if we are to have a monopoly, government owned NBN, then some of the legislative proposals are necessary and desirable. There is of course an alternative point of view which questions whether we as a nation want to return to a monopolised telecommunications network and whether it will be or even can be responsive to new challenges and technologies—or will it, as we have seen in the past, be a monopoly committed to the past because they control all the current networks? After all, why would an entity drive change when they have 100 per cent of the business and there is no scope for gain in market share? This legislation addresses some of the concerns of the industry and attempts to confine the NBN to a wholesale operation only. Unfortunately, it is this part of the legislation that also snuffs out the ability of any other organisation to build any part of its own network. This, of course, is the basis of a legislated monopoly.

It will be illegal for anyone to try and compete against this network. It will be illegal to offer a superior service and it will be illegal to offer a cheaper service. It hardly seems like a free country, and I predict a government somewhere in the future will attempt to break open this monopoly, although it is unlikely to be in the near future. It is likely to happen if and when the monopoly is seen to be dragging its heels on delivering new technology.

So, while there is good reason to make sure the NBN does not get involved in retail and uses what will be enormous market strength against competitors, it is harder to maintain an argument that no-one should be able to try and pick up a slice of the transmission market if they wish, which is the intent of these bills, insofar as any network built after 25 November last year capable of carrying more than 25 megabits per second will have to allow access to other parties. There is little chance under this legislation that anyone would ever be prepared to build a competing network.

Perhaps the most objectionable part of these bills is the only too obvious effort to completely remove the greatest single expenditure in Australia’s history, more than $50 billion, from public scrutiny. The move to neither list the NBN as public works nor make the company a public authority does just this. This move should be roundly condemned. What right does a government have to seek to avoid public scrutiny of the biggest single program in Australia’s history?

The very fact that the government understate the total expenditure on this project by refusing to include the $11 billion which they will have to pay to Telstra for access to their conduits and pipes and for transferring their customers across from the copper network they own to a network they do not own is one of the things that highlights the government’s intention to hide this from public scrutiny. It is in fact a dishonest representation of the facts by the government and I am concerned that the $37 billion figure used by the government has gained traction in the media. At the very least, the government should be honest about the true cost of this monument to their stubbornness.

To compound this lack of honesty, we know also that this enormous expenditure is off-budget, and while technically that is defensible it is yet another method the government are using to dilute the impact of the reckless spend, spend, spend policy they have employed since they came to office. Despite repeated assurances that they were fiscal conservatives—remember that one—that they were committed to surpluses and that they would protect the savings of the Future Fund, the government continue to spend and are driving Australia inexorably towards $90 billion of debt. And remember that figure does not include the NBN. The government continue to borrow $100 million a day to stimulate an economy which suffered a setback two years ago and is beginning to face labour shortages. So attempts to hide from the public the operations of the NBN should be resisted at every opportunity. I will be supporting the member for Wentworth’s foreshadowed amendments, which are aimed at addressing this travesty.

This brings me to some specific issues surrounding the NBN and its rollout. I return to the justification for building a network of such epic proportions in a global sense. I said earlier that industry experts are coming out and questioning the wisdom of this $50 billion extravagance. We should remember the words of telecommunications king and the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim Helu, in September last year, when he visited Australia to address the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Sydney. He said:

It’s too much money. It is not necessary to invest so much money, because technology is changing all the time.

He also criticised the reliance of the project on fibre, emphasising the need for a wireless service and stating that $7,000 a home to connect about six million homes was too expensive. Mr Helu went on to say:

You need to have a multi platform of everything; mobile, landline, fibre, cable and copper.

Recently, President Obama laid out plans to supply 98 per cent of US households with high-speed broadband within five years. As a stark comparison, the US will be using a multiplatform approach with a high reliance on wireless broadband. Already more than 110 million people are receiving fast broadband services courtesy of 4G wireless and using either Wi-Max or LTE technologies. Speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second are being achieved, which is as fast as the initial speeds promised by the NBN. Even more importantly, speeds up to one gigabyte have been achieved in trials; the same speeds the NBN hopes to achieve.

The great question remains: will Australians sign on? Certainly the experience from Tasmania at this stage is less than encouraging. I and every other member in this place will know of many, particularly in the younger generations, who no longer have fixed line services to their houses, preferring instead to do all via the wireless network. We have ample evidence that this network will improve, and it stretches credibility to think a fixed line NBN will reverse this trend or even reduce it. Of course, the government is hell-bent on making sure that we will not find out until it is too late to adjust the project.

I would like to take the opportunity today as well to look at some of the finer details of the NBN rollout. The government maintains 98 per cent of Australians will receive fibre-to-the-premises services. For those who will not be able to access fibre, the government has promised they will be supplied high-speed broadband of at least 12 megabytes either by wireless or satellite. This does lay a prima facie case. If 12 megabytes qualifies in the government’s eyes as high speed, what then of their argument that the coalition’s wireless proposals are inadequate? However, I shall put that debate to one side for the moment.

The government originally committed to 93 per cent of Australians having fibre-to-the-premises, including all towns with over 1,000 residents. Subsequent announcements commit to servicing 98 per cent and even more towns, with the remaining portion getting the far cheaper wireless and satellite services. I would like, therefore, to list some of the towns in my electorate, and their populations, which will miss out on the fibre-to-the-premises network: Orroroo, 500 people; Streaky Bay, 1,000 people—I thought people in towns of more than 1,000 people were to be serviced but not Streaky Bay; Brinkworth, 400 people; Wudinna, 600 people; Wilmington, 600 people; and Leigh Creek, 630 people. There are many more but time does not permit me to mention them. However, it must be said these towns may miss out on the fibre-to-the-premises network and will have the much cheaper wireless or satellite service connected. But they will get the full bill; they will not miss out when it comes to paying for this monumental extravagance. For $7,251 per head, or $26,375 per family, they will certainly get their fair share and equality when it comes to the bill.

So, in closing, if we are to have this version of a broadband network then some of this legislation is required. But there are some areas, largely surrounding the opportunity for any other company to compete for any of the workload and put some type of competitive pressure on the NBN to perform, where I fully support the amendments foreshadowed by the member for Wentworth.

Debate interrupted.