Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications. Will the minister please update the House on the NBN's forward rollout plan? Minister, what measures is the government taking to ensure the rollout continues on a predictable basis, and that the NBN Co's forecasts are reliable?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. The most important element in ensuring that the NBN's rollout forecasts are reliable is for the NBN to be managed in a businesslike way so that it is providing information that is reliable and forecasts that are achievable, as opposed to telling politicians what they want to hear. Under the previous government, the NBN month after month produced forecasts and figures that had no achievability at all. They missed all of their forecasts without fail. The statistics and metrics they put out were calculated to mislead. The NBN Co under the Labor government had a measure called 'construction commenced'. You would think that that involved people digging holes and trucks turning up, but oh no! No, under the Labor government, in that Orwellian world or that Conrovian world, construction commenced when you asked somebody to draw up a plan. That would be like saying: 'I've started construction on my new house.' 'Why is that? There is nothing happening on the lot,' your friend would say. 'Oh no—I rang the architect this morning.' This was the sort of madness that was pervading the whole of the NBN project.

Now all that has changed. Yesterday the NBN Co announced the 18-month rollout plan—1.9 million premises; construction will begin during the next 18 months. I hear honourable members complaining that it was designed to benefit coalition electorates. Let me say to honourable members that the electorate in Australia with the largest number of premises where construction will be underway in the next 18 months is in fact Newcastle—a Labor seat. Indeed, to give you an insight into the way Conrovianism is changing to neo-Conrovianism, I have in my hand a letter from the federal member for Charlton—Pat Conroy, MP—and it is very revealing. It reveals, for those who care to look at his letterhead, that he is very proud of his teeth, because there is not one of them that is not visible in the photograph. Nonetheless—gleaming fangs aside—he writes to me and urges that there be more fibre-to-the-node rolled out in his electorate, and he calls on us to do that. When Uncle Stephen hears about this there will be hell to pay! But what the honourable member is recognising is that we are getting on with the job. Indeed, there is a very large number of premises in his electorate where construction will commence. So getting on with the job, running the NBN like a business—those are the markers of this government. Responsible, businesslike and focused on getting the Labor mess cleaned up.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.