Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications. Will the minister update the House on the progress of the National Broadband Network? Has the company responsible for rolling out the network provided the government with a financial statement of what the cost to Australians would have been to continue with a full fibre network?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member for Isaacs made an unparliamentary expression across the chamber to me, and I ask that he withdraw it.

Opposition members interjecting—

I heard you. I heard it, and I have been required to withdraw it, and I would ask you to withdraw it.

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

The member for Isaacs would assist the House if he would withdraw.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, on the point of order, you have frequently asked the member for Isaacs to withdraw comments, and I have never complained. I was sitting next to him. Not a word came from his mouth. If it assists the House, he can pretend to withdraw, but it is one of the rare times he has been quiet.

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

Perhaps we will accept—the Leader of the House?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, there was an exchange over this particular term between the Leader of the Opposition and me last year, in which I was misinterpreted in what I had apparently said across the chamber, so I know the term extremely well, and that was the term used by the member for Isaacs, and I ask for it to be withdrawn.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

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

I thank the member for Isaacs. I now call the member for Eden-Monaro. I am sorry; I think you had better read your question again.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am very happy to. My question is to the Minister for Communications. Will the minister update the House on the progress of the National Broadband Network? Has the company responsible for rolling out the network provided the government with a financial statement of what the cost to Australians would have been to continue with a full fibre network?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. Only yesterday I was in Queanbeyan with the honourable member, where the first business in the area was being switched on to the NBN fixed-line network. You know, this was the Hendy effect. Prior to the election of the honourable member as the member for Eden-Monaro, there was no NBN in Eden-Monaro at all, but now, with the Hendy effect, it is sprouting up all over the place. We have almost 3,000 premises now ready for service, an additional 10,700 either under construction or in build preparation, and another 10,700 again in the 18-month rollout plan.

In Senate estimates this week, we had a very interesting exchange with the former minister for communications Senator Conroy. He, of course, is the shadow minister for defence.

Mr Champion interjecting—

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

The member for Wakefield! Do you want an early mark?

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

You would not see much evidence of that, but in fact he is the shadow minister for self-defence, because he spends all his time, like the famous Lieutenant Onoda, emerging from the jungles and fighting the old war. He comes back to fight the case for his misguided project.

We actually got some hard facts from the NBN Co this week which are of great importance. I remind honourable members that in April 2013, not long before the election, the NBN Co advised all of us—advised Australians—that the cost of passing and connecting premises with fibre was between $2,200 and $2,500. That is what they said. That was the work they had done. So inadequate were the management and accounting systems at the NBN Co that this figure was not just a little bit wrong; it was massively out.

We have since had a full audit, a full forensic accounting analysis of the cost of the project—and bear in mind it has now passed over half a million premises, so we do actually know—and this is what the real cost is. This is the apples-for-apples comparison. In April 2013, when they said it was costing $2,200, it was actually costing $3,359. Now it is costing $3,600. Costs have gone up, in fact, because the contractors were losing money at the time and the contracts have had to be increased so they make money.

The reality is that the Labor Party in embarking on this project did not even know basic facts. They did not have the management skills to know what it was costing. They were billions and billions of dollars out, reminding us yet again that Labor cannot manage anything.