Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

(   I am making a call today for NBN Co to change its style in the way it engages with communities. Last Friday, we had an NBN question-and-answer in my electorate of Herbert, in Townsville. Over 150 residents turned up, and ninety per cent of them were over 60 years of age. A lot of residents were simply unaware of the 23 May switch-off date for the first rollout of the NBN. Confusion remains—and it is total confusion—as to why they have to move to the NBN, because most of the residents thought that the NBN was just about the internet. This is about the phone as well. The name National Broadband Network was associated all the way through, as it insinuates, with being just the internet. So, all the way through the process, the NBN is not getting its message across. A lot of residents became irate and simply walked out. My office staff were there and have been inundated with phone calls, emails and handwritten letters in relation to the NBN and the lack of service that residents are experiencing at the moment.

The NBN can learn from these things. It can change from that big market, high-end, high-town, high-street rollout to become more of a community-style organisation. This has to be organised as a community. We have to have street captains. We have to make sure that people are going door to door and looking after people, especially our older citizens, when it comes to making these basic changes. Thank goodness Malcolm Turnbull has the sense to turn this organisation around and make it point in the right direction. (Time expired)