Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the residents of Tullimbar near Albion Park in my electorate of Throsby. I attended a meeting with them on Sunday last to further their campaign to see the National Broadband Network rolled out to their suburb.

The National Broadband Network is keenly awaited by residents throughout the Illawarra, the South Coast and the Southern Highlands in my electorate. They are very keen to get it. There is a lot of rollout going on but, equally, there is a whole heap of suburbs that are not getting it or that do not know when they are going to get it, and they absolutely need it. I am pleased to say that the strong advocacy for the project by myself and the member for Cunningham has seen many suburbs throughout my electorate and the neighbouring electorates with connection to the National Broadband Network.

The problem faced by the residents of Tullimbar is quite simply a problem of infrastructure failure. Theirs is one of these new suburbs that has fallen between the chairs. It was built before the Labor government's National Broadband Network legislation mandated that all new suburbs with more than 100 residents must have fibre to the premises included in the infrastructure build in the same way that electricity, water and guttering are connected to those new suburbs. It was built before then and what frustrates them enormously is that they see the new suburbs just across the road or just up the road being connected to the National Broadband Network and they are not getting it.

The problem is the distance from the exchange and the fact that when the suburb was built it was built on pair gain and RIM technology, which was suitable then but which is not suitable now. There is very limited ADSL, and when they do get it they are often paying for ADSL but getting dial-up speeds. They feel like they are getting ripped off—and I agree with them.

I was pleased to see both Telstra and the National Broadband Network turn up to address the meeting, and I thank the Minister for Communications for his role in facilitating the people from the NBN who turned up. The message to Telstra was quite simple: they understand that what Telstra is providing is a workaround until they get the NBN. They are willing to pay a fair price for their broadband but no more than they should be paying for the service they are getting.

The message to the National Broadband Network is that they want it. I can find no better at words than the words of one of the residents who turned up—and there were schoolkids, small business people and families there. But one particular bloke—92 years old—got up and said, 'I'm 92 and I want to see the National Broadband Network in my house before I turn 100.' Well: 'Hear, hear!' to him! The message to the NBN is that there is money to be made here.