Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for Communications. Will the minister outline to the House what factors contributed to Australia's decline in the international broadband standards and how the government will address the situation?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question, and I congratulate him on his election and his very fine maiden speech. During the six years of the Labor government, Australia's standing on any international broadband measure went backwards. There was rhetoric, billions of dollars spent and virtually nothing achieved of substance. As of September, under Labor, the NBN had passed a total of only 384,000 homes and businesses, including those supplied by satellite and wireless. This is barely three per cent of the 13 million premises it must reach to complete the project. It is 45 per cent of the forecast for September in the NBN Co.'s latest corporate plan, and it is one million premises behind Prime Minister Gillard's rollout announcement in December 2010. That meant that the rollout would not be completed until 2024, 3½ years later than stated under the latest corporate plan, six years later than originally promised in Labor's plan in 2009 and—wait for it—11 years later than the Australian public were originally promised by Kevin Rudd in 2007. And, as the Treasurer has observed, there is $29 billion more to be spent.

Ms Claydon interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Newcastle is not in her seat and not entitled to interject.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has never been, in our history—

Ms Claydon interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I said you are not in your seat and not entitled to interject.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

so much money wasted and mismanaged on an infrastructure project. That is why we have gone backwards on all of the international broadband measures—because Labor could not get anything done. The reason why they could not get anything done was sheer mismanagement and incompetence. We have inherited an enormous mess in the NBN, billions of dollars wasted and forecasts missed.

I saw the shadow minister clutching a document the previous management published a little while ago. He was saying that was the truth. Well, that document which he says is the truth says there would be 729,000 premises passed with fibre in June next year. We already know that is only going to be 467,000. So it was not the truth for very long. Every single forecast this company made under Labor has been proved wrong.

What we have done is, for the first time, to tell the truth—a thorough, objective appraisal. It is not happy reading for anyone. It is tough. It is conservative. It is prudent. This is the way governments must govern: based on fact, not on paying people, as Labor did, to tell them what they want to hear.