Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the review of the National Broadband Network rollout. It is a very important review. Broadband is already rolling out in the Riverina, certainly in Wagga Wagga. My good friend Joe Dennis was in Wagga Wagga just recently talking about the National Broadband Network. Parts of Wagga could have internet download speeds of 140 megabytes per second as early as mid-next year, according to NBN Co. Representatives were in the city on 6 March to dispel myths about the controversial multibillion-dollar project and to inform outlying areas of fewer than 1,000 premises about the services which will become available as part of the rollout. Mr Dennis, who is a consultant with NBN Co., said the rollout will be staggered. It will happen incrementally in three-month blocks, he said. The trouble with the NBN rollout is that it is just too slow and the take-up rate is not as high as the government would like. I can see the member for McEwen shaking his head. But I am correct on that: it is too slow and the take-up is not high enough. The trouble with this whole project was that it was initially going to cost $38 billion. We do not actually know what the figure might be now; it could be $50 billion or it could be $55 billion. The member for McEwen is again shaking his head. I am sure he will correct me and say no, it is going to come in under budget and on time. But it is just not going to happen.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don't want that.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We do want it to happen. We do want better broadband services for regional areas. But I will tell you what I would like to happen, and that is a better regional telecommunications fund to fix some of the black spot areas of mobile telephone communication. It is something I hear about every day from the people I represent. I am sure that you, as a regional member, hear it as well. I hear complaints about regional telecommunications and the black spots in our particular areas—your electorate of McEwen, my electorate of Riverina, the electorate of Flynn in Queensland and electorates in other parts of Australia. I hear far more complaints about poor mobile coverage—and I am sure that you do and that my Nationals colleague Ken O'Dowd, who is sitting right beside me, does as well—than I do about people wanting to download games faster than they can now.

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

Well, it is games, and other things as well, which perhaps are not going to add to the nation's coffers.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Education?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is certainly education—and, if you are going to interject, I will throw in medicine, too. I know that there is a doctor in Temora, Dr Ash Collins, who is particularly keen to promote e-health in Temora. But the speeds that he has at the moment enable him to do that, and the NBN has not actually hit Temora yet. There are a lot of hospitals in my area that are quite happy with the download speeds that they have now. Medicine in real time is more important in regional areas, where there are far fewer specialists and far fewer doctors than in metropolitan areas. I would like hospitals to prioritise things a little better than they are now, certainly with the public health dollar. That would enable prostate biopsies to be performed in the theatre at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital and palliative care services for Wagga Wagga, which are not happening now.

Getting back to the rollout of the NBN, about 99 per cent of Australia's population has mobile phone coverage. However, 77 per cent of Australia's landmass has no reliable mobile coverage. That, I believe, is a far greater problem than having fibre to the node rolled out to as many premises as are lucky enough to have it. I was speaking to an NBN representative just last week who said that one of the biggest problems was that they were able to do a certain amount of rolling out of the NBN until they hit rocks. The ripping up of lawns and all those sorts of things are causing great distress for a lot of people. If the NBN just went up the main streets of particular towns and cities, certainly throughout regional Australia, you might think that it was not such a bad project. But the fact is that it is not going to towns of fewer than 1,000 premises. It is not being taken up in some areas by people who simply do not want to have to pay the high costs. And certainly we do not want our children and grandchildren to be saddled with a $50 billion debt when we are already $260 billion in debt.

I have been criticised for saying it—and the member for McEwen would probably know the sorts of critics who are out there—but I believe health is No. 1 and education is not too far behind when it comes to priorities for spending of taxpayers' money by the Commonwealth. There was no cost-benefit analysis done of the National Broadband Network before Labor just decided that this would be a good thing. They got on a plane and wrote down a few things on a coaster: 'School halls; that comes before health. What else can we do? Pink batts in roofs would be a good idea. We'll rip people's lawns up and lay this expensive fibre network which a lot of people do not need, or do not want, and cannot afford. But, hey, we'll do it, because we'll not have to worry about how we pay it back. We'll not have to worry. The coalition will do that. We have not produced a surplus since 1989, so why start now?'

An opposition member: Why start now? Why break the habit of a lifetime?

Exactly. Wyatt Roy will be a grandfather—in fact, I do not know whether Wyatt Roy, the member for Longman, will even be with us by the time Labor produces a surplus. And certainly there has not been one produced in his lifetime.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, there has.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, there has not. The last time Labor produced a surplus was 1989 and Wyatt Roy was not born.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He was born then!

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order ! The member for McEwen is speaking next and he can have his say then.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Problems with mobile coverage was the predominant issue raised with the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee in 2011-12, not that long ago. The issue was raised at every public hearing and in two-thirds of submissions. I just love some of the comments that came from that, and I just love the way country people speak. Jim Barwick, who lives near Warialda, where Mark Coulton, the member for Parkes, comes from, said this:

For crying out loud, surely we have a right to be able to make a bloody mobile phone call without having to climb a tree or sit on a silo!

And he is right. There are farmers in my electorate who stand on top of their International tractors. My father used to have an International tractor, and they are huge red things. They are iconic in Australian rural settings. I can just picture Dad, if he were still alive, standing on top of his tractor making a phone call and saying, 'Yeah, I'll get that price for wheat.' It is just ridiculous to think that they have to stand on top of the engine of a tractor to get mobile coverage, and for poor old Jim near Warialda, he has got to make his calls from in a tree or on top of a silo. We had another comment:

… businesses are unable to capitalise on advances in technology to improve productivity—for example, agricultural applications that use mobile technology to record and process data in the field.

Mobile coverage is so important in rural areas, but it is not happening. Now, with wheat being deregulated, farmers need to have access to mobile phone coverage.

One of the most important aspects of mobile phone coverage is safety. We are a nation of fires, floods and natural disasters—not because of climate change, but because that is just how Australia is. It is a country of contrasts. It has been since time began and it will continue to be. It is just the way this wonderful brown land operates. There were fires up in Tumbarumba in late 2009 and several floods in 2010; floods in February in Ganmain last year and in fact floods in all parts of my electorate in March last year; and there were fires again particularly throughout the east of my electorate and also in Narrandera in January this year—fires that made the national news. Many of those poor people affected by those floods and those devastating fires were not able to make emergency phone calls on their mobile phone because there was no coverage. There has never been any coverage, so, when the landlines go down due to natural disaster, what happens? How in the hell do these poor people know in advance that there is going to be an emergency, and how can they make a call to get themselves help, to get themselves that emergency assistance which they so desperately require? Certainly, if we are elected in September this year, and may the good Lord let that happen, I will certainly be lobbying for better mobile coverage, as I have with ministers.

Ms Saffin interjecting—

I can see the member for Page laughing. This is a serious subject.

Ms Saffin interjecting—

I know you are serious about mobile phone coverage in your electorate, because I know your electorate well, and I know that you have also got problems with mobile phone coverage.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We do.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You do. It is so important for country members to continue to fight for better services, because governments of all persuasions tend to be citycentric. They do. That is just the nature of the beast. But I can tell you, as a regional member, we will continue to fight for better mobile coverage, for improved access to the sorts of services that we need. I know how passionate the Nationals are about representing the regional areas and I am sure that all regional members are concerned and passionate and desperate to get better services for their areas. There is no bigger thing in regional areas than health; education is another, and mobile telephone communications are also very important.

Since 2008, the Labor government has done nothing—I will repeat that: nothing—to improve mobile phone coverage in regional Australia. This is to their detriment, to their eternal shame. The Boorowa Shire Council says:

Business in general has become more cost efficient through the use of technology, there is a definite productivity contrast between those farmers who enjoy mobile coverage, and those that don't. This impacts not only on profitability and competition, but will also have a negative impact on land values.

That was from the RTIRC report, and that land values issue is very important. Real estate in regional areas is now always valued according to whether properties do or do not have mobile phone coverage. If you bought a prime piece of agricultural land without mobile phone coverage then all of a sudden your land is devalued because you do not have a tower within range. But your neighbour's land, which might not have been worth the same amount, all of a sudden is now at a higher value. It is not fair. It is not right. In a land where we should be using more wireless technology and we should be smarter with our Commonwealth money, I cannot see that that is fair. I cannot see the equity in it.

The coalition took action when in government. We spent about $145 million between 2001 and 2007 to improve mobile coverage. I will repeat again: Labor has done nothing since 2008. But we, the coalition, implemented the $15.65 million extended mobile coverage in regional Australia program, which improved CDMA coverage in 62 locations. We also funded the Towns Over 500 Program, which improved mobile phone coverage for 131 towns in regional Australia with populations of more than 500 people because we do care about towns with under 1,000 premises. We also funded two programs to improve mobile coverage along highways worth a total of $44 million. We also implemented a significant number of small projects worth more than $10 million through the Networking the Nation initiative. But you know what? We did not do enough but they have done nothing.

Those opposite are rolling out a Rolls-Royce of NBN with no cost-benefit analysis. There is no accountability but that is so typical for everything that side does. There is absolutely no accountability because they know that after September 14 they will not have to worry. From our point of view, hopefully they will not be the ones paying it back, we will. We are the proper managers of fiscal policy in this country. The public knows it and the voters know it because they went to the polls and showed they are not fools in Western Australia on Saturday, just like they did in Victoria, just like they did in my state of New South Wales, just like they did in Ken O'Dowd's state of Queensland. They know when they are being duped. They are being duped at the moment. They are certainly being duped with the NBN. There is no cost-benefit analysis, no accountability. That is typical Labor. We all know it but we also know that regional communications are so vital to get people the right coverage for safety aspects, to enable them to do business and to help regional Australia go ahead to be the best that it can be.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is often said that politics is theatre for ugly people. We just had a Logie performance there by the member for Riverina. I will start by reminding the member for Riverina—

Mr McCormack interjecting—

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Riverina may wish to ask for a point of order and then may wish to get the call from the chair. Does the member for Riverina have a point of order?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are talking about an audit committee report on the NBN. The member is not only not on the committee, but also he fails to understand that it is talking about a national broadband network, not mobile phone black spots. I do understand the member for Riverina's point on mobile phone black spots because they were the ones who sold Telstra and removed it from being a public company into private hands where it relies on profit not community service. They are the ones who sold out the bush totally when they were the lapdogs to the Liberals in the Howard government and left most parts of regional Australia failing in mobile phone coverage. They also had 18 failed plans on broadband. Every single one they did failed. As he runs out of the chamber, I will give him a copy of this so that I can remind him it was his party that sold Telstra and sold out country Australia. We are falling behind the rest of the developed world in our internet connections, speeds and availability.

Those opposite sit there and try to run this failed little argument that it is all about games. It just shows their ignorance and why their leader has appointed the member for Wentworth to 'demolish' the NBN. They do not want it. In the worst-case scenario, if they do get into government it will mean that regional Australia and the developing outer suburbs of capital cities, the expanding ones in the newer states, will not have quality 21st-century broadband speeds. They will not have access to the new and improved medical treatments that are available only through using high-speed broadband. They want to keep country Australia and our outer suburbs back in the Dark Ages, using copper which has been around for 100 years. But copper cannot compete with modern-day technologies that are available using optic fibre. Nothing is as quick as optic fibre. That is why it is important to have these things.

You can see that through instant things like breast screening and the like, that can be done across country areas. People can have live-feed straight back to a major hospital and get results instantly. You see that through the educational opportunities where people in rural and remote areas have the opportunity to learn close to home without having to leave their communities and head to the major cities. You see that with business opportunities where people can work from home, increasing productivity and removing the pressures on our clogged roads—and, Madam Deputy Speaker Vamvakinou, you being from Victoria would know just how bad the road system is now that the new Victorian government under its second Premier, the unelected Premier, has gone to the northern suburbs and said that there will be no upgrades until 2046. At the same time they are opening 120,000 blocks of land just north of your electorate in my area, and they are not going to build any road infrastructure.

It has taken this government to sit down and bite the bullet and say that we need this broadband. It is an essential service in today's modern society. It is not a luxury for the rich and for those who live in Darling Harbour and places like that. It is something that everyone needs right across the country.

I have been able to travel overseas and have a look at opportunities where fibre-optic cable is used and where you see the different resources available for rural and remote communities. For example, I was in Ottawa in Canada where they were teaching traditional dance and traditional methods to their First Nation peoples. Some of these people were 10,000 kilometres away, but they were doing it live using the optic-fibre broadband and they were able to provide these educational opportunities to rural and remote communities from Ottawa with specialists to make sure that those traditions continued. That is vitally important for the people of the First Nations particularly in Canada, but it can also be used over here. That sort of technology can be transferred here for us to use.

We have seen the opportunities with training for medical students, where they can have a classroom that is borderless. It does not matter where you are, if you have got access to high-speed broadband you can come together and learn these vital skills that are needed to help people particularly in country areas. That is why the NBN is such an important piece of national infrastructure. It has often been quoted that it is the 'railways of the 21st century', and it is. It is something that needs to be done and that is why Labor is getting on with the job of doing it. Being part of the committee—and I have the pleasure now of being the deputy chair of the committee—I believe that when you sit down and have a look at what is happening and where it is going, you can see that this is important.

It is pretty sad that we got such an appalling dissenting report based on partisan lines from the opposition who are continuing their role to destroy the NBN. Claims were made in a dissenting report that the NBN has 'failed to deliver on brownfield sites'. When NBN Co. uses their latest corporate plan, they round connections to the nearest thousand. They sit there and say, 'Okay, brownfield sites—we are going to do 29,000 connections.' That is a great target. They actually delivered 28,817. According to that lot opposite, that was a failure. It is ridiculous that they would say that, but in new sites where NBN had over what their original plan was, which was 10,000 and they got to 10,027, there was not a whisper out of those opposite to say, 'NBN are fantastic; they have reached more connections than they intended to.'

This is a very complex piece of infrastructure that is being built, as I said, to help productivity, to help growth and to help ensure that, no matter where you live, you are going to have access to these things. In areas such as mine, when you get out to places like Riddells Creek, Romsey and Seymour, the biggest complaint I get about the NBN is that it is not getting there quick enough. People want the NBN and they want it now, because they know the opportunities are there in education, in health, in business or even their for own personal use. It is very important that we continue with this, and the threat of those opposite, to say they are going to demolish the NBN and get rid of it, is absolutely appalling.

In the dissenting report, the arrogance of the opposition in relation to this was quite clear. They went out and said to NBN Co., 'You should not be entering contracts that go past 14 September in case there is a change of government.' The absolute idiocy to say such a thing! Should we then go to the defence department and say, 'Look, you shouldn't enter contracts for Joint Strike Fighters and all these sorts of things up until 14 September because there could be a change of government'? It is absolutely silly to say those sorts of things. The arrogance of virtually going out to all the departments and saying, 'The world stops on 14 September,' is crazy. Yesterday, we saw them carrying on about needing to have business surety for the future. Yet at the same time—this is just further evidence that they will say one thing to one group and one thing to another group—they want all government contracts to stop on 14 September. So they want those who are building our frigates and the like to stop—just pull up stumps. Nothing could be more frightening to the Australian economy and to the business community than to have this lot out there running around saying that everything should stop on 14 September. It is absolutely ridiculous, and I think that will show.

Wherever you look on any industry website or any industry journal, the support for the NBN is there. The option that they are putting forward is fibre-to-the-node. We know it does not work. It is like building a highway and then having no exits, because that last bit between the node and your home makes the NBN what it is. Bringing fibre to the home is going to give us limitless opportunities. I admit that I am not the world's most technical person on this, and I know that, as we go forward, having the cable—the backbone—in place gives us the opportunities. As new technologies grow and develop, they will have access to that—access to things that we never thought of. You might not be old enough, Deputy Speaker, but I can remember a time before mobile phones—we never had them. Have a look now; 1991 was the first email. Look how far we have come in our lifetime to where we now have smartphones that do everything for us. You can even get connections now for people at home that can tell you when your fridge is empty. Your phone is able to do this, through apps and using a backbone—that is the important thing, because I know some members opposite will say that 4G will cover that, but their ignorance on the needs of having a backbone are ridiculous. I am sure that other members on this side will be speaking about this and go into more detail, because it is actually amazing ignorance of what is available.

This report has been tough to put through because, at every turn, NBN has faced a roadblock called the Liberal Party, that have come out and tried to stop everything NBN Co. does, to stop this from being built and to cut down the opportunities that are available for Australians when the rest of the country is crying out for high-speed broadband.

Opposition members interjecting—

The member opposite again just showed his ignorance, and I think the key part of this is that not one member of the committee is speaking on this. They have gone and dragged out the leftover Luddites and said, 'Can you talk on it?', because they know, deep down, they are embarrassed about what they are putting forward. They know that members in their community are actually screaming out for it. That is why you get members opposite saying, 'We want NBN; we want it now.' Why don't you go out and tell your community, when they scream: 'Hey, I don't want you to have it. I want you to stay in the 20th century. I don't want you to get into the 21st century. I don't want your hospitals to have the latest medical opportunity. I don't want your kids to have the best educational opportunities. And I don't want you to have the best business opportunities at home. So stop screaming about it.' I dare you to go out and say that. Go and tell your community that you are actively pushing for them not to get access to the NBN. See how long you last then. This is such an important piece of infrastructure that it should have bipartisan support, but it does not, unfortunately, because, as I said at the start, the constant negativity of the opposition leader is intended to destroy the NBN and stop people having access to high-speed broadband no matter where they live across this country.

It is an important report. As I said, it is failed by a very appalling dissenting report that is just full of errors and absolute jokes. It is actually a bit of a giggle if you read it. On one hand they are saying NBN is not being transparent enough. Then on the other hand, two pages later, they are talking about how they do not like all the figures. You cannot have it both ways, but that is the way they do their politics. They will go and tell you one thing and they will someone else another, just like they are doing with GST, just like they are doing with Work Choices, just like they are doing with the baby bonus. With all these things, no matter where you look at it, they are the party of contradiction. I think Australians have woken up to this. They know that the NBN is an important piece of infrastructure for our future. They want it and they want it now, and NBN Co. should be given the opportunity to continue rolling it out and to make sure everyone gets access to high-speed broadband.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak in this debate. I do wish the member for Riverina was here, but maybe he can look this up another time. A couple of things I found disappointing in his contribution. He talked about the importance of health services for his regional area. There are a few regional members here in the chamber. Then he went on to talk about using the NBN to download games. The thing is: it is not about the download, it is about the upload. If he wants people in his region to have the best health care, the best remote access, this is a policy he should be supporting wholeheartedly. If he speaks to any practitioners in his community I am sure that they will be very aware that unless the NBN is built they will not have the highest speed broadband, not just for the internet, which is but one application, but for the upload of the most advanced applications to enable these remote health services to actually be realised.

There is another thing that I need to correct him on. He went through the litany of initiatives that he believed the former coalition government had undertaken in fixing mobile black spots. I will run through a few of them. Firstly, he talked about the millions and millions of dollars that had been allocated to CDMA network improvement. This is now redundant technology, so I do not why we are really counting that. Secondly, he talked about upgrading on highways. I will tell you the story of that. The Howard government opened up contestability in the universal service obligations, starting with the Pacific Highway. I am glad our members who represent the Pacific Highway are here because, as they will well know, that was an absolute failure, it was an abject failure. If you drive along the Pacific Highway, as I do every single Christmas, you will find there are black spots there, because the previous government decided that this would be an area of contestability in the USO. It was a dead set failure.

There is not only this when you look at the litany of failure that they had over their term of government in these regional areas. I will pay credit to some very genuine people amongst those opposite. People like Mr Neville, who was a very important force at that time in trying to get a better deal for regional areas, was met with roadblocks at every turn. When Telstra was sold, the only concession that was made to regional areas was to remove the universal service obligation requirements from the Telecommunications Act and just place it in another piece of legislation. There was nothing that went along with this. I know these things because, for a decade, this was one thing that I did: I would have to go through and analyse different universal service requirements and regional builds and using Australia as an example when I was doing rollouts in remote areas in places like Cambodia and China. Every time you would do these analyses you would find how Australia had failed dismally on this point.

I disagree in part with the member for McEwen—he was asking what does mobile have to do with the NBN. You will find mobile operators are very keen on the NBN because they are going to be able to fibre-up their base stations. Those opposite seem to think that mobile telecommunications are these little bits floating around in the atmosphere, and they just end up between devices. You need, at some point, a terrestrial element to this—the infrastructure to support this high speed is what mobile operators have been calling out for.

This applies not just to regional areas. If you go to some new areas in my electorate—areas like The Ponds—and you try to use an iPhone or another smart phone, it will not work because of the black spots in the coverage there. What are we doing about that? This is why in the north of my electorate, in Riverstone, we have the site of the first Sydney metro roll-out of the NBN. That is why this government is so adamant about investing in this—we know that this is going to be so important for both wire-lined, fixed wireless and wireless technologies generally.

In the context of regional Australia I want to mention something else that members might have missed from Tuesday. It seems the opposition is now taking its broadband advice from consultants and bankers as well, which does not surprise me. The Financial Review on Tuesday indicates that a new report by Allen & Overy and Venture Consulting suggests one option is to separate NBN Co. into two entities—Metro Co., serving profitable urban operations, and Regional Co., housing operations in remote areas that would require government subsidies for longer. This is great if you are Telstra but a pity if you are in a regional area which is loss-making. It would be giving two classes of service—no equivalent service, but two classes of services for Telstra. It is money for jam. I find it absolutely incredible that we have regional members coming in here trying to lecture me on how bad the NBN is when they should pick up the thing and, as well, just see where they are getting their advice from.

In the article in the Fin Review, the member for Wentworth talks about the privatisation of NBN Co.:

I think it’d be better off not belonging to the Government,” he said. “But I just think it’s going to be very hard practically, and I used to sell businesses and assets for a living, it’d be very hard to sell for quite a long time.

The reality is that in the legislation passed in 2010 the government committed to a sell-down of its stake in NBN Co. This is the bloke who wanted to make it easier to sell NBN Co., coming off the back of their hugely successful privatisation of Telstra—which it was not. They wanted to make it easier to flog off. But where does he put his own money when it comes to technologies? He is putting his money in France Telecom, which is a fibre-to-the-premises solution rather than a fibre-to-the-node. I will talk bit about fibre to the premises and fibre to the node in a minute. The Financial Review goes on to say that FTTN—fibre to the node, which the member for Wentworth continues to push—would require use of existing copper connections into homes, leaving Telstra in a strong position to protect and even increase its NBN windfall. So not only are they proposing to create two classes of consumers when it comes to high-speed broadband in this country—one for regional, one for metro—but also they are entrenching the dominance of Telstra in the customer access network. If that is not totally insane, I do not know what is.

FTTP has been raised leading up to this report, and it is also mentioned in the dissenting report. It is interesting that France Telecom is actually discarding all its copper. As the member for McEwen rightly pointed out, copper is reaching its use-by date. It has served us very well, but even Telstra knows it needs to be decommissioned—and when it gets decommissioned I, for one, do not want it to be replaced with more copper; I would prefer it to be replaced with the highest-quality infrastructure, and that is what the NBN is. The French, as I said, are moving completely to fibre to the premises.

But the disparities the coalition is seeking to create in broadband access in this country get worse. Not only does it appear that the coalition is taking advice on different rules for regional and metro areas. But now there is a proposal from 19 February that people who want the NBN should have to pay for that last connection. Mr Turnbull's latest idea is to make Australians who want direct fibre connected to their homes pay for it themselves—a connection fee of as much as a $3,000. Unless you have $3,000 in your back pocket or you live in a metro area, you can pretty much forget it.

It is interesting to note that the opposition's questioning in the hearings that led up to this committee report really just tried, again, to focus on the idea that 'We can do it cheaper if we do fibre to the node rather than fibre to the premises.' Sure, you will be able to do it cheaper—you will be able to do it cheap and it will be absolute rubbish in terms of quality and speed and in terms of competition. And in the long term the costs of maintaining fibre to the node—not just building it, but the maintenance costs—will be far higher for FTTN. An analysis from Computerworld says:

Fibre-to-the-node, around the world, costs between one quarter and one third of fibre-to-the-premises.

And that is true. It says:

That is the experience in North America and Europe.

It says that not only will an FTTN deployment result in higher long-term costs but that the reason we need a new NBN is 'to provide a truly universal service', and that if you are looking to rely on the existing copper network,

which would be that last connection, you are going to inherit all of the quality issues that we see today.

So, it is very true that we do need fibre to the premises, because, again, the NBN is a scaleable technology—and it is infinitely scaleable. This is 21st century infrastructure that Australians deserve to have, regardless of where they live and work. And I will quote Mr Quigley of NBN Co.—because I was at the committee hearing on 30 October last year—who very rightly pointed out, when asked about these things:

Reliability is much higher on fibre. There are lots of different types of copper in the network, a whole range: paper filled, jelly filled, some aluminium, some direct buried, some in conduits, some in ducts. It is hard to generalise other than to say that, in general, copper maintenance costs are rising, particularly in those places where you have damp conditions and you are subject to wet weather.

More and more, as I look at these announcements that are made willy-nilly by the opposition about what their broadband policy would be, I do not take a great deal of comfort from their Real Solutions plan. It is, again, just a series of platitudes: 'We're going to deliver it, we're going to do it cheaper, we're going to roll it out faster.' Yes, but it ignores the reality that we still have incredible black spots today, and there are something like 439,000 dial-up subscribers in Australia. It is absolutely ridiculous, when we have had—how many failed plans?—from those opposite when they were in government, and we still have nearly half a million dial-up subscribers in Australia.

I also wish to take up the very valid point the member for McEwen made, that some members go into their electorates and say one thing and then come in here and do something completely different. I am going to call them out on this. They run around the country whingeing that they do not have the NBN, that they are not getting it fast enough. But when they come into this place, they vote against it. Not only do they vote against it; they obfuscate. They make sure that things happen slowly. They try and present every argument as to why the NBN should be destroyed. They have a policy which says that it should be destroyed. Yet people like the member for Dickson run around the country, taking up petitions and telling people, 'We want the NBN now,' and then they come in here and vote against it. What hypocrites! What absolute hypocrites!

I want to quote, in particular, from a media release which I think was put out by the member for Dickson—or it may have been the member for Wentworth or both. It states:

Residents … voiced their disappointment in the Government for cancelling the Howard Government’s contract with the OPEL consortium to deliver a broadband network in outer suburban and rural and remote Australia by 2009.

I am very happy to talk about the Opel network, because those opposite are talking about cost-benefit analyses. There was never a cost-benefit analysis for Opel. And so it is no surprise that when this government was elected and saw that Opel was not going to deliver everything it promised, it said: 'We're not going to go ahead with this. This isn't going to deliver for people in regional Australia.' So those opposite cannot come in here and say: 'We want the NBN to roll out faster. Why isn't it rolling out to all these business parks in my electorate?' These people should be honest and say to their residents: 'Well, actually, I've been campaigning against it. I've got a policy to abolish it.' Do not go out there and start taking up petitions and saying, 'Woe is me', and then come in here and do something absolutely different.

I will end by saying that, the more I look at these plans, the more I am absolutely convinced that what we will see from those opposite will be no different from what they went to the electorate with in 2010, which was a mish-mash of different technologies but all of them stuck in the stone age and all of them not about equivalence. (Time expired)