David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

(1)      notes that the National Broadband Network project was badly mismanaged by the previous government, and has:

(a)   caused a substantial amount of taxpayer funds to be wasted; and

(b)   led to a minute proportion of Australians actually being connected to the network; and

(2)      recognises the plans of the Government to change the strategy of NBN Co. Limited, delivering a high quality service in substantially less time and at substantially less cost than would have occurred under Labor; and

(3)      commends the Government on its approach to this important infrastructure project.

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak on the National Broadband Network. Rarely in our history has there been so sorry an example of public administration as the administration of the NBN under the previous government and rarely has there been such a clear contrast between the two approaches.

To start the NBN story we have to go back to 2007 when Kevin Rudd said that the then opposition would contribute $4.7 billion to what then was only going to be a $10 billion network. They then had a few chats with people in industry and decided that that was all a bit complicated. The then communications minister, Senator Conroy, in a couple of fleeting airborne meetings with the then Prime Minister, said, 'That idea we had before the election is not going to work, unfortunately, because the numbers do not stack up even remotely.' The then Prime Minister emerged in April 2009, mustering all the gravitas that he could, and said, 'With the private sector in retreat the government will step up and build the NBN at a cost of $43 billion.' He said the private sector would contribute up to 49 per cent of that cost.

Of course, that did not happen because this was such a flawed project from the outset. So much so that the independent report that the government commissioned late last year found that the cost to build the NBN would be about $73 billion. You have to pause for a moment and think about that. There are about nine million households in Australia, so $73 billion works out to be about $8,000 per household in Australia. Further, the report found that the average cost to the average home under that plan would be about $138 per month. You might recall Labor saying prior to the election that under Labor high-speed broadband would be free. Of course this is manifestly false because it failed to identify the fact that each household was effectively contributing about $8,000 in taxes to build it and then would be required to pay more than $100 per month in order to access it.

There were supposed to be half a million homes connected by June 2013. There are actually 23,000. The cost of the network prior to the election was $6.5 billion, reaching only three per cent of homes. That is a very bad investment. What that failure means is that people continue to struggle to get high-speed broadband in this country. Small businesses in Padstow in my electorate still struggle to get high-speed broadband, as indeed do many residents in Lugano. So for all the bluff and bluster, and the extraordinary commitment of public funds on a whim and the back of a napkin, the practical results are very poor.

We are going to focus on practical results. We are going to use technology in a multifaceted way. If technology is working effectively or it can be used, rather than ripping it up as the previous government was going to do, we will make use of that asset to build the NBN in a strategic way. We will save $29 billion, an extraordinary amount of money, and we will build it four years quicker than the previous government would have done. Any claims from those opposite in relation to the NBN have extremely limited credibility. When you take into account the extra cost blow-outs in the network and the fact that three per cent of homes were covered for $6.5 billion, it is an extraordinary use of public money. Interestingly, since the government of the day completed its deal with Telstra in relation to the NBN in 2011, the share price of Telstra has increased in a fairly dramatic fashion, which may suggest that the government did not negotiate the most sophisticated of deals with Telstra. That is another indictment of the extreme failure of public policy. This government's plan is on the right track and will get the NBN that Australia needs faster and more cheaply.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a strange sense of deja vu. It feels like we were here in the same place debating the same motion this time last week. But if the Liberal Party want to talk about their second-rate NBN, if they want another mauling from the Labor Party about what they are doing and the mistakes that they are making on the NBN, then we are very happy to oblige. That is because the people of Australia do not want a second-rate NBN, they want the real NBN. In the member for Banks' electorate that is what they are now not going to get. Hurstville, Peakhurst, Padstow or Lugano are places that would have got fibre to the home; now they are going to miss out. There are new developments in places like Hurstville, Riverwood and Kingsgrove that have got fibre to the home, but all around those areas are places where people live and need the real NBN and they are going to miss out. Don't worry, we will be very happy, come election day, to tell them all about it.

We will also tell them about the broken promises of this government. I have spoken before about the promise the Prime Minister made that by 2016 everyone would have access to 25 megabits per second. But just recently I came across this, which is Tony Abbott's letter to the Australian people published on election day on news.com.au at 9.11 pm. In that letter he talks about being a 'no surprises, no excuses' government. That is not worked out too well. He talks about being a government that says what it means and does what it says. That has not really happen. And then there is this beauty:

I want our NBN to be rolled out within three years and Malcolm Turnbull is the right person to make this happen.

Well, that did not last long. It did not last three years. It did not last three months. It was December last year when they broke that promise. But, interestingly, when I checked on the Liberal Party's website this morning and that promise is still on the Liberal Party website. This is just bizarre. They broke this promise six months ago but they are still promising 25 megabits per second by 2016. They are that proud of their broken promises they are publishing them on their website!

The minister, apart from promising 25 megabits per second by 2016, also promised that his negotiations with Telstra would be quick. How is that going? It is now nine months since the election this week and there is still no sign of an agreement, and here is the reason: the government wants to buy the copper and Telstra does not want to sell it. The head of Telstra recently said they want to keep ownership of the copper network. The chairman of NBN, Ziggy Switkowski, said earlier this year that he thinks ownership of the copper network should be transferred to them. That is despite the fact that advice to the minister when he came to office late last year said that the government purchasing the copper would be 'a very high risk approach' and that instead they should lease the copper or have a managed service. Whoever wins this fight, whether it is the government or whether it is Telstra, there is one group people who will lose out, and that is the Australian people because they will end up with an ageing copper network rather than fibre.

The NBN is still not being rolled out fast enough. I have been critical of our government for not rolling it out fast enough and I make the same criticism of this government. In October last year the minister was in Blacktown and he said that 450,000 premises would be passed by fibre by the end of this month, by the end of June, and he is not going to meet that target.

He also said a few things in parliament last week. He said that the government's second-rate NBN would be about $30 billion less expensive for taxpayers. That is not right, and I said last week the difference in the cost to taxpayers between their model and ours is less than $1 billion. The minister disputes this. Who is right? Respected journalist Renai LeMay looked at this issue last week, and what was his verdict? He said:

The evidence shows that Clare is correct …

So if the Liberal Party want to debate the NBN then we say: bring it on. You have broken promises that are still on your website. You have negotiations with Telstra that have not been quick. You have a fight between Telstra and the government on who owns the copper. Construction is still too slow and in places like the member's electorate of Banks, in places like Padstow and Peakhurst, they are going to miss out on the real NBN and get a second-rate NBN instead. So keep moving motions like this. Go right ahead.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we just heard a startling admission in this chamber, and I am pleased to hear the member for Blaxland has finally admitted that he is critical of his own government for his own government's failure to roll out the NBN. What we have seen in the rollout of this infrastructure project is, frankly, an unmitigated disaster. So Clare is right on one issue: yes, it has been—

Mr Clare interjecting—

I am only repeating your own words, because you were speaking about yourself as 'Clare'. So I am just following your example. The member for Blaxland has highlighted that the previous government fundamentally failed to do what it said that it would do.

Since September 2013 the government has put this project back on track. Twice as many Australians are using the NBN today as on election day. In nine months the number of premises covered has increased 65 per cent, from 348,000 to 573,000 premises. Labor underestimated the number of Australians in regional and remote areas who want the NBN by a factor of two to three. What we are delivering is a plan to roll out the NBN to all Australians, and we are proudly doing so.

If you look at the way in which Labor rolled out the NBN in my electorate, it is an absolute disgrace. Areas of the greatest need were ignored altogether. The rollout map in Corangamite excluded all of southern Geelong. They were the areas that most needed the internet, and yet they were completely excluded. So we have seen from the very beginning, from the days when Kevin Rudd first promised the NBN back in 2007 for some $5 billion, a monumental disaster of delivery.

Our strategic review found that the true cost of Labor's NBN is $72.6 billion—$29 billion more than the public were told—and it would take until 2024. That is an absolute disgrace. Labor's NBN would lift broadband costs by up to 80 per cent—$43 per month for a typical household.

Not only have we seen an absolute failure with the rollout we have seen monumental disasters in relation to the various elements of the NBN. Consider the NBN interim satellite service. Labor promised some 250,000 households that they would receive satellite. In fact, just a small fraction of that received it. In my electorate and across many parts of rural and regional Australia there are literally thousands of people who cannot access the internet because Labor short-changed them on the interim satellite service. It was a total mismanagement of a vital service for rural and regional Australia. We see the same mismanagement in the fixed wireless system; Labor failed to acquire enough spectrum. Again it monumentally underestimated the demand and monumentally failed to deliver as it committed. Without the policy changes that we are making the NBN would be unable to service some 200,000 premises in these areas.

From my experience in a large regional area of Victoria I have seen time and time again that Labor does not care about rural and regional families. It does not care about mobile-phone black spots. It does not understand how important communications are to families living in the country. The fact that Labor did not spend one cent on mobile-phone black spots is an absolute disgrace. We have seen an unmitigated failure by Labor in the way in which it has prioritised communications infrastructure and a monumental failure in the way in which it has been costed. We have heard from the member for Blaxland. The fact of the matter is that these figures are from la-la land. I spoke last week about la-la land—you ruled that that was very much in order—because it is la-la land. This project was delivered irresponsibly and we are proud to be fixing it. (Time expired)

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to have the opportunity in this place to debate broadband accessibility because the last time a coalition member moved a motion on the NBN the subsequent headline in Delimiter read: 'Liberal MP misleads Parliament with NBN motion'. We are going well. Today the member for Banks has come into this place, having had a swig of the Turnbull Kool-Aid, and moved a similarly ridiculous motion. Look at the words of the motion; they are mired in politics. The motion ignores the benefits of having an equitable, accessible and ubiquitous broadband network, which is what Labor's NBN is. Those opposite do not care about affording all Australians, both in the cities and in the bush, the opportunities that come about through a high-speed broadband network.

One of the biggest betrayals we have seen in this place in recent years was the absolute capitulation by the Nationals on the issue of wholesale pricing equivalence. The tories, those who represent regional areas as well, get up in this place and talk about abandoning the bush. They have abandoned the bush. They are not standing up for wholesale pricing equivalence, which is what has driven the digital divide in this country. I note that there are no Nationals MPs speaking on this debate. Where are they? They sold out their members; they sold out their constituencies when Telstra was sold; and they keep selling them out on the issue of wholesale pricing equivalence.

I note the member for Grey is listed to speak on this motion; I thought he would be in the chamber by now. I look forward to his contribution, because he has some beauties. He issued a media release on 14 February 2012 that said:

While the Government is talking up the new satellite service for rural and regional Australians, which will increase download speeds, there are real issues with latency—

when it comes to the satellite service. In April 2014 he issued another media release that said:

Good reliable internet is an expectation and people in the regional Australia need broadband as much as those in the city and as much as I welcome this upgrading of the interim service, I am really looking forward to the second half of next year when the dedicated NBN satellites come on stream.

On the one hand, he is criticising satellite services in the bush and, on the other one, he is welcoming them. No wonder his constituents are confused. Labor's NBN was supposed to end the disparity between metro and bush prices. The Nationals and regional Tories have completely sold out their constituents on this issue. As we move to the substance of this utterly contemptible and misleading motion, it should be pointed out that, in this brave new world of copper technology, the government's fibre-to-the-node trials have been delayed. As ZD Net's Josh Taylor wrote on 30 May:

NBN Co was due to commence live trials of fibre-to-the-node technology in Umina in New South Wales, and Epping in Victoria at the start of May, however neither trial has yet commenced.

Why the delay? According to NBN Co's chief operations officer, who is quoted in the same article:

The Epping trial in Victoria has slowed down a bit, while we work with the utility there to find a power solution. We're working through that.

This is what he said at an estimates hearing—a 'power solution'. This is one of the issues that I, and we on this side, have been warning about. It is one of the issues that for many years to come, when it comes to the FTTN, will confront this government as it continues with its hotchpotch approach of the MTM, or Malcom Turnbull's mess. As I wrote last year in Business Spectator:

… indeed, Mr Turnbull can have his tiny cabinets as he asserts—

for the FTTN—

so long as they don't need batteries, are not subject to flooding rain, and appropriate line lengths are available for each. And with 60,000 of them, don't forget to add the O&M—

operation and maintenance—

costs onto each of them as well.

Certainly, this is what the shadow minister has alluded to. These are all the issues that are differentiated from a true fibre-to-the-premises build. It will dog this government and the minister for years to come.

And, on the issue of delays, as the Australian Financial Review noted last week: 'Telstra-NBN Co deal tipped to miss deadline.' But the minister said it would be so easy, so quick. He is the magic man. He can strike a deal with Telstra quicker than anyone else. We all know now that the current estimate is that the negotiations to reacquire Telstra's copper could be delayed by up to six months.

I note that this motion also points to cost, just as the member for Gilmore's motion did last week—and we know what happened there. We saw the headline. The member for Banks, in his motion, specifically does not mention figures. I believe this probably indicates he does not stand by the previous comments from Minister Turnbull and the member for Gilmore. At a time when the member for Banks should be thinking about delivering broadband to his constituents he was out there, before the budget was even announced, apologising for the budget. People do not want your pity; they want the NBN. (Time expired)

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor governments left behind an absolute fiscal shambles. Indeed, we can all agree that they had the Midas touch in reverse when it came to delivering on projects, from the pink batts tragedy, which not only cost lives but cost more to remove than install, to overpriced school halls or, in Mt. Crosby's case in my electorate, an undersized concrete slab with only two walls, to the financial fiasco of them all—NBN Co.

When the coalition came to office, Labor could no longer hide the disaster that was their NBN Co. We learned that Labor's own financial advisers warned that the NBN project had a negative net present value of around $30 billion. The project was forecast to lose money for taxpayers from day one. Yet, despite these warnings, Labor always refused to refer their multibillion dollar fiasco to the Productivity Commission for proper analysis, which could have delivered a more cost-effective outcome and saved taxpayers billions of dollars. To have proceeded with the NBN, regardless, is a level of fiscal recklessness we have not seen before in Australia.

The NBN Co carried out its Strategic Review from October to December last year to objectively estimate the true cost of, and timetable for, completing Labor's fibre-to-the-premises NBN and alternative layout options. The review found that, if Labor's NBN proceeded, it would cost $72.6 billion—yet another $29 billion more than the public were told—and would take until 2024, after originally promising completion by 2016

On taking office, the coalition government was duty bound to revise the NBN rollout maps. Labor's maps were simply wrong. It was revealed that Labor's definition of 'construction commenced' was directly at odds with most people's understanding of what those words meant. In fact, no on-site construction of any kind needed to have occurred for this definition to apply. Now most people do not consider 'construction commenced' on, say, a house or office building, where the only action to occur is for instructions to an architect to draw up the plans. This misleading rhetoric is not used or accepted by any construction companies around the world—but then again NBN Co did live in a world of its own.

The coalition believes in being open and honest with Australians about the true state of the NBN rollout. For example, we believe that if you live in regional Queensland, we should not tell you that construction has commenced in your street, when in actual fact, all that has happened is that a network planner has drawn up a map while sitting in an office in Sydney. Labor's NBN was going to cost a fortune for everyday families, lifting broadband costs by up to 80 per cent or an additional $43 per month. Labor went to the 2013 election promising 1.13 million premises would get fibre connections by 30 June 2014—yes, this month. But NBN Co had informed the then Labor government that the fibre would be revised downwards by 500,000 premises, a fact the Labor government failed to tell the public prior to the election. In July 2013, Labor told 250,000 households and businesses they were eligible for the Interim Satellite Service, yet by December 2013 the 1SS reached its capacity of only 48,000 customers and registration closed. Labor spent $351 million on the 1SS— $7300 per user—yet it only delivers a dial-up service to many users. In April the coalition government moved to fix Labor's mistakes by committing $34 million to improve the 1SS and improve service quality for existing users and proceed with new connections.

The coalition government is spelling out the facts about NBN Co's performance, instead of misleading the Australian people. The coalition is committed to rolling out the National Broadband Network as quickly as possible, at less cost to taxpayers and more affordably for consumers. Since September 2013 the coalition government has put the project back on track and now twice as many Australians are using the NBN from when we took over. In nine months the number of premises covered has increased by 65 per cent from 348,000 to 573,000. The coalition government has a plan to ensure all parts of the nation are properly serviced. The coalition government has approved NBN Co's recommendation that the rollout proceed using a multi-technology mix that matches the right technology to the right locations and leverages existing infrastructure where appropriate. This approach will save taxpayers $31 billion, get the NBN finished four years sooner and enable nine out of ten Australians in the fixed-line footprint to get download speeds of 50 megabits per second or more by as soon as 2019. The most reprehensible part of this is that the residents of Brisbane City Council could have had fibre to the premises—(Time expired)

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 'fraud band tour de farce' has rolled back into town. Last week regional members were kicking it along and this week we have the member for Banks at the wheel. I would have said they had 'rolled it out' but they have not been able to demonstrate as a government their capacity to roll anything out and so it seems quite wrong to use that phrase in relation to anything they do. What they are rolling out is the same old untruths and falsehoods. The government rest on three claims: that they would do things differently; they would do it in less time; and they would do it at less cost. On all three claims, they are wrong.

The reason I say that their claim to be doing things differently is wrong is that they are not doing anything differently to what they have done previously—that is, relying on copper. Every time they have relied on copper they have failed. They failed 20 times before and we are getting ready for failure 21. They went to the election with their claim about taking less time. They said there would be two versions—our version would be delivered by 2021, theirs by 2019 or two years' difference. When it came to targets, we said 93 per cent of premises would be connected by fibre to the premises; they said 30 per cent of that 93 per cent would be connected by HFC. Anyone who has used HFC knows that the best thing about it is the day when they do not use it. Those opposite also said that 44 per cent will get it via the node and 26 per cent will get it fibre to the premises.

Copper is their crutch. They are already found wanting. Ziggy Switkowski, the chairperson, is saying that they will have to upgrade copper, but what we are hearing from those opposite is slower speeds delivered a year quicker, $1 billion cheaper and with less bang for the buck. They claim that it would cost $73 billion, but all they have done is inflate the cost number by changing the assumptions—a tactic that they always use. For example, they say that it is going to cost residents and households more, and the member for Ryan just carried on with that canard. The current NBN retail prices are comparable to other forms of broadband and NBN Co. has locked in the prices to mirror inflation. What was not mentioned by those opposite is that the people in the regional areas under their model will pay way more than the urban area because of the changes the coalition has made.

The other claim is that residents do not want one gigabit per second and that there is no other network. This is what the minister has claimed: no other network in the world has been made at that speed. That is actually wrong. The shadow minister and I visited a network that is being developed for one gigabit per second. It is being developed by Google in various parts of the United States, where people are seeing transformations in regional areas because of the fact that they have a strong broadband network.

I took a tour through the member for Bank's electorate to get a sense of broadband quality in his area via www.mybroadband.communications.gov.au. When it rates the accessibility and quality of broadband in his area, I do not think there is a lot to be proud of. If he were fair dinkum, he would be championing his people's interests, not trying to get brownie points from an out-of-touch PM in the way that he has. If you look at 12 suburbs in his electorate, while some of them may have great ADSL access, a lot of them, apart from two places, have terrible speeds. In fact, some of the worst places, like Padstow Heights, get three megabits per second, and yet all he is championing today is slowing down the ability to help those suburbs.

One Padstow person quizzed Malcolm Campbell on Twitter and abused him. In fact, he said, 'Is it fair that the city gets higher speeds than the bush?' It is interesting because the response from Padstow residents was that FTTP is not just about speed; it is also about reliability. Every time it rains, you lose both phone and internet in Padstow. This is what the member for Banks is championing. When people were giving him chip back, the Minister for Communications chipped them via Twitter by saying, 'You don't care what it costs, do you? You want it and you want everyone else to pay for it. It seems pretty selfish to me.' I wonder if he is using that argument about PPL in the cabinet room. At any rate, people in the area of the member for Banks, like, for example, real estate agents in Oatley, are talking about whether the access is good enough in prospective homes. People in the area of the member for Banks indicate they want a better NBN, not a nastier, slower, dud of an NBN; they want broadband; they do not want 'fraud-band'.

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

The NBN has been a rolled gold disaster. It promised the earth, but in fact it delivered about a truckload of gravel. We have got a long way to go at this stage. There is the hype that has gone around the NBN. Towns like Port Augusta in my electorate have been totally misled. In fact, fibre to the node was supposed to be finished about now. By the time the election came, the headline contractor in South Australia had withdrawn from the contract to deliver on the ground. Barely two streets had been covered in Port Augusta. When the contract was in such disarray, the objectives that were placed on the NBN board were totally beyond reach. We are now picking up the pieces and putting back on track, if you like, the NBN rollout. The member for Greenway says that I do not stick up for my electorate. She may not have listened to what I have had to say on this and a number of other issues. What I will not do is mislead the people in my electorate into thinking that things are on track and completed before they have any chance of being in that boat.

I am also responsible in my electorate for about 80 per cent of the state which will never be covered by fibre to the premise, fibre to the node or, indeed, fixed wireless networks. That is what I shall call for the purposes of this debate 'the satellite community'. One of the things I have always said about Senator Conroy's NBN is that he got it right when it came to the commissioning, building and launching of two custom-built satellites to service that satellite community at a cost of a billion dollars. I thought that was good policy, and I think it will serve Australia well in the future, even though there are likely to be some teething difficulties.

The problem was, of course, with the interim service. Here, Senator Conroy propagated a disaster at every level. Initially, he said that 250,000 Australians will be able to hook on to the interim satellite service. In fact, he only leased enough space for 48,000. Then, even worse, the NBN of the time did not limit the size of the data packages. In fact, it did not even reach 48,000 before the system slowed to a crawl.

The member for Chifley accuses us of spreading mistruths about their particular NBN. Perhaps he might take an opportunity at another time to enlighten me about where I have been wrong about this interim satellite service. The previous minister said 250,000 people could be serviced. He booked enough space for 48,000 and it crashed at 44,000.

Since that time we have been picking up the pieces. Minister Turnbull has leased another 9,000 places at a cost of $34 million. I might point out that Senator Conroy's original investment was $351 million for the interim service, which ultimately crashed at 44,000. Minister Turnbull, as I have said, invested $34 million in another 9,000 places, and a further $18.4 million to fix the 44,000 that are already operating at sub-standard speeds—in fact, the slowest dial-up in some cases.

I had constituents, who were originally quite excited at the interim satellite, contact me in my office. We were advising others, 'Hook onto it; the government has said it will work.' But we had no idea that within 18 months or two years those same people would be ringing back and abusing my office for directing them to the interim satellite service. Not only did the previous government allow over sized data packages to be sold but they did not actually ask people whether they were able to receive a service in another manner when they allowed them to sign on to the interim service. A lot of this was the result of a minister who had a crash-through-or-crash approach. I think in the end it will be viewed that he crashed.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the motion, because the motion is totally bogus. It does not go to the real infrastructure crisis that we have in telecommunications, particularly in regional Australia and central Victoria. Before Minister Malcolm Turnbull took the reins and became the Minister for Communication, there was a plan. There was a roll-out plan for central Victoria, and we were progressing through that plan. That plan has stalled. When did it stall? It stalled at the time of roll-out to my electorate.

In Bendigo in central Victoria, we are in the midst of a telecommunications crisis, because we have a problem with telecommunications infrastructure. Prior to this government coming to power, we had a plan. Right now, if Labor was still in government, fibre to the premises would be rolled out. The contracts were set to be signed but Bendigo has missed out. And we are falling behind the rest of Australia and the rest of regional Victoria—places like Ballarat, Geelong and Shepparton—because they are getting the roll-out.

When it comes to the NBN we have had a number of smaller areas switched on to the fixed wireless. We have had a number of farming communities switch on to the satellite. But what we still do not have, to this day, is a plan for the rest. We do not have, today, a plan for Bendigo. We do not have today a plan for Woodend, Kyneton, Castlemaine—the major population centres. It puts those areas further behind the digital divide.

The reason why this motion is bogus is that it is a smokescreen for what is actually going on in the bush and in the country. Nowhere in the government's plan have they talked about the wholesale price. Under the former plan, the NBN was going to fix the divide between city and country and ensure equity. Yes, it is more expensive to deliver services to the country, that is why Labor, which is the only party that truly stands up for country areas and regional areas, said there would be a single wholesale price. So regardless of where you lived, it was to be the same wholesale price. You cannot leave it to the market when it comes to the country. It is simply more expensive because there are further distances. Labor gets that and it had a plan around the wholesale price.

Yet today, while we stand here debating this ridiculous motion, there is no comment from the government about the wholesale price when it comes to regional areas. There is no plan from this government about what they are going to do in Bendigo. We knew prior to the election that the rollout would be happening right now through the main streets of Bendigo and into our main towns. We knew that was the plan, but today we are still waiting. And as we speak there are people from iLoddon Mallee coming to this House, meeting with the minister to say: 'What are we going to get? We do not know what we're going to get and we don't know when we're going to get it. Are we going to get fibre to the node?' Again, another disaster for regional Victoria because we are further distances from the node, so we have to pay more.

What the coalition in government have is half a plan. They have a 'We'll build it to the corner—maybe' plan. They have a, 'We'll let you go through the coaxial cables, through the pay network maybe' plan. They have a, 'We may go to the basement' plan, which does not work in a town where we do not have high-rises. They have a, 'We may go to your estate' plan. Bendigo is on hold and our economic future is on hold until we get a plan, and that is why it is so important that the minister actually comes out and outlines his plan for Bendigo and central Victoria. At the moment the few homes that have been able to connect to the NBN, they are embracing it and are excited. These are the homes in our small towns like Tarnagulla, these are the homes that are in the outlying areas of Malmsbury, these are the homes where they are excited and they are clicking onto the NBN because for the first time they have decent internet access.

Yet in our other areas, whether you be in Bendigo Central or in towns like Woodend, they are falling behind. Every time it rains the copper network in our area fails and people ring up my office. So today my office in Bendigo, because we had rain over the weekend, will have more complaints about the failing copper network. And that is the fundamental flaw with the government's plan and why they have not released it—that is, it relies on a failing copper network. If we are serious about connecting to the world and serious about connecting to the regions, then we need the NBN and not more smokescreens like this ridiculous motion.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion moved by the member for Banks. It is great to see so many people here still and to hear those who have spoken passionately about this issue. They have their views, and then there are the facts, so I will try to enlighten the members who are still here about the particular issues faced in my electorate of Swan.

The member moving the motion talks about problems with the NBN around the country, but I would put forward today the proposition that nowhere—nowhere—has the rollout been so shambolic, so mismanaged by Labor, so disappointing as in my home state of Western Australia. The reason I am talking on this, and have spoken previously in parliament about this issue many times, is the fact that in my electorate of Swan the previous Labor government decided to promise at the 2010 election to roll out the NBN and to start that in June 2011. They did not get around to starting it until about October 2012, as two years later there were no ready-for-service premises in these areas.

There were, however, dozens of newspaper articles, press releases and media appearances by the Labor Party, and I have some of them here showing the Labor Party at all of their ceremonies. There were maps, there were button-pushing ceremonies announcing the NBN was here and was available; in my electorate of Swan the Labor Party even promoted a forum on Labor's NBN on the basis that it was 'delivering fast, affordable and reliable broadband free of charge'. The problem was that on election day 2013 there were only 34 premises in the whole of Perth connected. How good was that? What a rollout! For all the button-pushing events, all the announcements that it was turned on, all the press releases, all the photos with councillors behinds trucks, all the wearing of hard hats and hi-vis vests—and there were only 34 connected in the whole of Perth. It was a shocking record and exposed the true state of the NBN in Western Australia under the Labor government—an absolute shambles.

The shambles was exposed in many areas but was perhaps summed up by the fact that the lead contractor in Western Australia, Syntheo, which had struggled to deliver anything much, announced that it would pull out of state and no longer continue with the project in WA. In August 2013 it was announced that the Syntheo joint venture and NBN Co had decided not to renew contracts in Western Australia in South Australia—I see the member for Grey here and he knows about this—after their expiration in September 2013 and November 2013. On August 13, 2013, The Australian featured an article, entitled 'The never-ending NBN rollout', which detailed how:

… days after Syntheo said it was walking away from the NBN … as many as seven subcontracting companies in SA also had pulled out of the project, complaining they were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid fees.

Difficulties with Syntheo and delays in progress as a result were not a new problem for NBN Co. The article pointed out that in March 2013 the company had admitted:

… labour problems in the Northern Territory and a lack of specialist fibre-splicers had hit the rollout with a three-month delay.

Those problems got so bad the NBN Co had to revoke Syntheo's contract to build the fibre network in the Territory.

But if you listen to those on the other side, this is an excellent rollout. They are saying what a fantastic rollout it is.

In his motion that we are debating, the member says that the NBN was badly mismanaged by the previous government. The minister has said on many occasions that the lack of any rigorous study or cost-benefit analysis was detrimental to the project. I think this mismanagement and lack of planning and analysis came together in Teague Street in my electorate of Swan, one of the areas where construction did actually start in Western Australia. There were two issues in Teague Street that I was contacted about by my constituents. They initially contacted my office about the damage being done to streetscapes. One constituent kept count of the number of times the street had been dug up and reconcreted—again and again and again.

More worrying was the incident involving asbestos at the site. I spoke about this during the last parliament and I will not repeat it in full today as members can refer to that speech and I am sure they will be rushing out to do that. But I will repeat that the highest priority must be the safety of the workers and the communities where this work is taking place. It sounds a bit like the pink batts incident, doesn't it? We can have all the rhetoric about who is right and who is wrong but, at the end of the day, major infrastructure projects must protect the workers and the people in the communities who could be affected by such things as asbestos fibres.

In conclusion, I support the motion moved by the member for Banks. I am confident that the minister will be able to turn this sorry debacle around and ensure fast broadband is delivered to Western Australia and my electorate of Swan.

Debate adjourned.