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

In accordance with standing order 149, the Federation Chamber will first consider the schedule of the bill.

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

I move:

That the proposed expenditure for the services in Schedule 1 be considered in the following order

The schedule read as follows—

Proposed order of consideration of portfolios:

Communications

Attorney-General's

Attorney-General's—Arts

Attorney-General's—Justice

Finance

Foreign Affairs and Trade—Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs and Trade—Trade

Employment

Social Services

Social Services—Human Services

Infrastructure and Regional Development

Immigration and Border Protection

Industry

Defence—Defence

Defence—Veterans' Affairs

Education

Environment

Agriculture

Treasury

Treasury—Small Business

Prime Minister and Cabinet

Prime Minister and Cabinet—Indigenous Affairs

Health

Health—Sport

I take the opportunity to indicate to the Federation Chamber that the proposed order for the consideration of portfolio estimates has been discussed with the opposition and there has been no objection to what is proposed.

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

Is it the wish of the House to consider the items of proposed expenditure in the order suggested by the minister?

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

No, it is not. I have not received a copy of that document. I think that, in order to have an open discussion and to enable the opposition to ask the questions it wishes to ask about the minister's portfolio, he should be happy to receive questions on any topics within his portfolio responsibilities.

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

I think the honourable member has missed the point. It is the order of portfolios we are talking about. You are free to ask your questions now.

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

I take it there is no formal objection then?

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

No, there is no objection.

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

It is therefore so ordered.

Communications Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $1,754,082,000

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

The funding announced in the 2015-16 budget for the Communications portfolio will continue to support the appropriation of an innovative and competitive communications sector in Australia while making it simpler and easier to access digital public services. Through the 2015-16 appropriation bills, the government will provide the portfolio with over $9.1 billion to deliver its priorities. That includes an equity injection to the NBN Co of up to $7.8 billion, including half a billion dollars from prior year appropriations; $288.6 million for the department to deliver its own outcomes; $1.1 billion through the department to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; $283.3 million through the department to the Special Broadcasting Service Corporation; $94.3 million to the Australian Communications and Media Authority; and $30.9 million to the Digital Transformation Office.

I will just say a little about the Digital Transformation Office because honourable members may not be as aware of it as of some other initiatives. The Digital Transformation Office, or DTO, will be established as an executive agency from 1 July. It will transform the way public services are designed and delivered, making them simpler and easier to use. All new and redesigned services will be digital by default. This means that everyone will be able to access public services digitally, from start to finish, on their mobile device or PC. That is the goal. As part of the 2015-16 budget, the government has announced an investment of $254.7 million in the digital transformation agenda to drive innovation and make it easier for individuals and businesses to access government services. This amount includes $95.4 million over four years for the establishment of the DTO, with the $106.8 million of the remaining $159.3 million in funding over four years to be provided across agencies for streamlining grants administration by adopting standard business processes, a common ICT platform, improved reporting arrangements and a single portal to search and apply for grant opportunities. The Commonwealth currently has a large number of grants administration systems. We do not need that. We can streamline that and make it easier for citizens and easier and more efficient for government.

Another priority is a trusted digital identity framework, for which $33.3 million has been allocated, which will provide individuals and businesses with easier ways to access government services and potentially to access other services. The Tell Us Once program, which is an initiative that has $11.55 million allocated to it, is designed to enable users to update their contact information with government once and to have this information transmitted to relevant linked agencies.

A digital mailbox solution—$7.1 million—is designed to enable individuals and businesses to receive and transact with digital messages and documents from government in a seamless and secure environment. This funding is being fully offset by contributions being made across portfolios with the communications portfolio contributing $7.5 million, $5.2 million from the department itself and $2.3 million from ACMA.

I am sure other matters will be raised in the course of this consideration in detail, but the Digital Transformation Office us a very important initiative. I hope it is not a controversial one. Plainly, all of us here should want citizens to be able to engage with the government as easily as they can engage with their bank, an online commercial site, eBay and so forth. It is a very important priority. The key underlining philosophy about this is to focus remorselessly, totally on the customer. This is not about cutting costs. I believe there will be a lot of savings over time. The focus is on delivering the customer the experience that is valuable to them and to do so in means that are digital and hence contemporary.

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

The government have broken a lot of promises. They have broken their promise that there would be no cuts to health. They have broken their promise that there would be no cuts to education. They have broken their promise that there would be no changes to the pension. As the minister knows, because he did it, they have also broken their promise of no cuts to the ABC and no cuts to SBS. But it is not the only area where this government have broken promises: the government have also broken promises on the NBN.

The biggest one was a promise made in a press release by the minister on 9 April 2013 where he and the now Prime Minister said:

Under the Coalition's NBN all premises will have access to download speeds 25mbps to 100mbps by the end of 2016.

On election night, the Prime Minister went further in a letter to Australians where he said:

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

The budget papers show that the minister is failing to deliver on this and that less than 25 per cent of this original promise will be met. The government promised before the election that everyone would have access to 25 megabits per second by the end of 2016, all 11.3 million homes. The budget overview says that only 3.1 million homes and businesses are anticipated to have the NBN in place or under construction by September 2016.

But that is not the only promise that the minister has broken. I am sure that he will recall in his policy FAQs that were put on his website on 9 August 2013 that state:

It is forecast that the large scale rollout of any changes to the network design—such as implementing fibre to the node—would commence in mid 2014.

That did not happen. It did not happen mid-2014. It is now mid-2015, and the large scale rollout of fibre to the node still has not started. So the government is at least a year behind.

The minister in opposition was also very critical of the cost of the NBN. In 2013 the now minister promised, in his election policy document at page 15, that the NBN, under this government, would cost $29.5 billion, but he has failed to deliver on this promise as well. In a radio interview with Tom Elliott on 14 August last year, the minister said that the total cost of the government's NBN would now be 'about $42 billion', and that does not include the cost of upgrading the network down the track. What do you get for this? You get a second-rate NBN, a network that includes fibre to the node, which Simon Hackett—who the minister appointed to the NBN board—said recently 'sucks'. And he continued:

If I could wave a wand, it's the bit I'd erase.

In short, under this minister, the NBN is rolling out slower than he promised, and it is more expensive than he promised.

In his election policy, he also stated at page 2:

Suburbs, regions, towns and business districts with the poorest services and greatest need for upgrades will receive first priority.

The minister is breaking this promise as well. If you go onto the government's myBroadband website, you can get a list of places right across Australia that have terrible access to the internet. Here are just a couple: Macquarie Fields, Broken Hill, Orchard Hills, Cronulla, Gladstone, Russell Island, Tingalpa, Snowtown, Paradise, St Peters, Bothwell, Southport, St Marys, Little Swanport, Point Cook, Laverton, Maryborough, Ascot, Munster, Scarborough and Dundee.

Minister, if you go to your website, there are parts of these places that are ranked E for broadband availability and E for broadband quality. That is the lowest rating available on your website. These are the places that you said would 'receive first priority', but the problem is that they have not. They are not on the NBN rollout plan. They are not being prioritised. My question to you, Minister, is this: given that you have failed to deliver on so many of your promises on the NBN, will you make a commitment today to put parts of these places that are rated E and E for availability and quality on the 18-month rollout plan when it is updated at the end of this month?

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

Just dealing with the shadow minister's first point: the Labor Party when in government talked endlessly about broadband and, after six years in government, had passed about two per cent of the population. It was an extraordinary failure in delivery: all talk, no action. It was in fact fibre to the press release. The rollout was designed entirely for political purposes. I see the honourable member for Chifley here, and I can give a very good example from his electorate.

So unconcerned were the Labor Party about people's broadband needs, so unconcerned were they about where broadband was good, bad or indifferent, that they did not do a survey of broadband availability—from which the honourable member just quoted. We were the first government in Australia to do that. It was never done before. Everyone talks about broadband. Nobody prior to the election of the Abbott government had ever done the work. We did that, and we were able to identify where broadband was good—and in many parts of Australia it is good. It is very good, in fact. In other parts, it is absolutely shocking. So we were able to identify them. And we said we would, so far as is practical, ask the NBN Co to prioritise those areas that are worst served, and that is exactly what they are doing.

If you look at the premises in the 18-month rollout, the percentage of underserved premises in the precincts where the NBN is being deployed is significantly higher than it is in the overall population. Of course, in a fantasy world, in an ideal, imaginary world, it would be lovely to just be able to go and fix this house here and that house there, but plainly—the honourable member knows this—it is a project that has to proceed in a contiguous way. Given that the worst served areas tend to be those areas which are furthest from the exchange—so the signal on an ADSL service attenuates to a greater degree and, hence, the service is poorer—obviously, you have to do that whole exchange area, and that will include premises that have pretty good ADSL and premises that have not. But, as far as is practicable, the NBN is doing precisely that.

Let me come back to what Labor did, because this is the great contrast. It is sad and comical in a very black sort of way. Not long after the election, Ziggy Switkowski, then the new chairman of NBN Co, and I went out to inspect some work of the NBN in, in fact, the electorate of the honourable member for Chifley. We got out there, and the NBN workers were there and they were doing what they do. They were stringing cable, connecting houses and doing a very good job. We noticed that in that particular part of that suburb there was Telstra HFC, so anyone in that street could order a 100-meg broadband product from Telstra. So that was it. But that is not all; there is more. Along the electricity poles, there was also the Optus HFC. So people in those streets could order two competing 100-meg products, and those streets had been prioritised by the Labor Party.

The Optus and Telstra fixed line HFC services—before the construction of the NBN—generally speaking, offered the best fixed line broadband in Australia. There are some areas where they overlap and compete and many areas, of course, where they do not. You could not find a part of Australia with a better range of broadband than these streets. That is where the money was being spent; that was the priority. It is blindingly obvious that the reason that it was happening there was that it was in the honourable member's marginal seat. It was all politics. Fibre to the press release was all that Labor was about.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, over the past few months, I have been working closely with NBN representatives, namely Peter Gurney and Hayley Connelly, in my electorate, in terms of the implementation of the NBN in Solomon. We have run a number of info sessions and forums, and they have been very well received. As you know, Minister, I have a very young demographic in Solomon, and the feedback from my electorate has largely been positive around the NBN rollout. We know that the NBN is amazing for business opportunities; however, I am getting a lot of feedback from my electorate in terms of its entertainment potential, and I guess this is around the young people. The other query that I am getting from the young people is: 'When are we going to get NBN? Because we're really, really excited.' So the question for you is: would you be able to provide an update on the rollout of the NBN in Solomon, particularly in Darwin and Palmerston, with expected completion dates, so that we can give that information back to the very excited people in my electorate?

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

I thank the honourable member for her questions and observations. She is absolutely right that the internet is becoming a very important entertainment platform. I think a good way to look at the internet—of course, enabled by the NBN but not exclusively by the NBN—is that it is, in many respects, an uber-platform, a sort of a super platform, which is trumping every other one. I think that we will see a continuing move of so many other services. Whether it is services that were traditionally broadcast over the air, like television and radio, or services like newspapers, of course, which are printed on paper, everything is moving onto the internet. With the arrival of Netflix—and, again, Netflix is not the first videostreaming entertainment business in Australia by any means—we have seen the impact of this form of video distribution. In the United States, Netflix alone—one company—consumes one-third of prime time internet bandwidth.

Turning to the electorate of Solomon, the people of Darwin in the honourable member's electorate are really seeing the benefit of having a strong Liberal MP fighting for her electorate and working to solve the problems we inherited from Labor. I do not need to tell the honourable member this, but others may be interested to know that the NBN rollout in Darwin at the time of the election was a complete mess. We had inherited huge problems with service class 0 premises—that is, premises that the NBN had said were passed because the fibre went down the street but that could not actually get a service for a variety of reasons, not least because there was no lead-in. The NBN could not give an estimate as to how long it would take to get a service. There were precincts or FSAMs declared ready for service by the NBN Co under the Labor government where 90 per cent or more of the premises were service class 0. That, as we explained in the press release yesterday, has all changed. Now at least 40 per cent have to be service class 2—that is to say, there is a lead-in—and at least another 40 per cent are service class 1—that is to say, they can be connected within a month; for service class 2 it is generally about two weeks.

The rollout in the Northern Territory had ground to a halt, essentially. It was in a state of collapse, as it was in South Australia and Western Australia. But, through the honourable member's help and advocacy and her passion for her community, we have turned things around. At the time of the last election, Labor was claiming to have 2,672 premises passed with fibre in her electorate of Solomon, but, extraordinarily, only 118 of these were actually serviceable. Today we have 18,581 premises serviceable, and 7,208 of them have actually ordered a service and are paying for one. We are not stopping there. There are another 23,000 premises in Solomon where building of the network is underway, and it is fair to say that Solomon has one of the more extensive rollouts of any electorate. The honourable member's passion and advocacy is something that the government and the NBN Co especially welcome because, frankly, we need the revenue. I say to all honourable members: encourage your constituents to sign up to the NBN, because it is a very expensive project, and the more revenue we can get the better.

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

Is that the motivation?

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

This is a good interjection; I will not miss that. The member for Chifley says, 'Is that the motivation?' Yes, it is, honourable member. It is one of the motivations. It is a pretty big one. I know it is a revelation to the Labor Party but, if you build a project like this, you have to generate some revenue to pay for it. But, of course, in the la-la land of Labor, it does not matter; you just get the old government chequebook out. It does not matter. But your distinguished former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on several occasions said that the NBN was going to be such a fantastic commercial investment that mums and dads would be lining up wanting to invest in it. They would have to be beaten off with a stick, it would be such a hot deal. Really! Anyway, we are dealing with it, we are getting it built, and all I can say is that the more people use it the better.

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

Given the minister now classes 10 per cent seats as marginal, it is an interesting reflection of how much trouble they think they are in given the splendour of Prime Minister Abbott's great work in leading your government.

I rise to speak on behalf of residents I represent in this place to voice their and my concern about the way in which SBS managed the production and promotion of its program Struggle Street. Last week in the House I raised my concern that the production company responsible for Struggle Street, KEO Films, failed to obtain the informed consent of the program participants. These were experienced filmmakers and TV broadcasters dealing with inexperienced and vulnerable participants who were not provided with copies of the release forms once they were signed. Participants were not offered independent legal advice before consenting to be filmed. Is he concerned about the ethical breaches I outlined in the House last week? Has he raised these breaches with SBS? Does he intend to follow this matter up and can he report back on the outcome of these inquiries?

I also ask the minister if he supports the public broadcaster in threatening legal action directed entirely at the mayor of Blacktown City Council—action that, again, concentrates on the individual and not on the council itself—because the mayor dared to raise serious concerns about the way the program was produced and promoted. Does the minister believe it is appropriate for public broadcasters to attempt to strong arm public officials in this way? And would the minister personally accept similar legal action targeting him, given his recent criticisms of the conduct of experienced journalists with another public broadcaster, the ABC? On this point I ask: why does he feel it is more important to object to the way that Emma Alberici and Leigh Sales hold public officials to account on their respective programs but then claim he cannot influence the decisions of the SBS board when they blatantly demean and ridicule my constituents, some of them in personally vulnerable circumstances, in the way they did via their promotions for Struggle Street?

It is nearly two years since the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications brought down its report on IT pricing regimes imposed on businesses and consumers. Does the minister intend to respond to this report by the time Apple brings in iPhone 7?

Finally, and on another matter, the minister is well aware of the significant interest that exists, particularly among sports fans, for free-to-air TV being broadcast in high definition quality. Earlier this year, I raised this matter in the House. I understand the minister has undertaken a public consultation process on this matter. Can he inform the House on the status of these consultations? Can sports fans expect to watch the NRL and AFL grand finals in the splendour of HD quality this year?

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

I just want to remind the honourable member of a provision in the SBS Act at 11(3):

The Minister must not give a direction in relation to the content or scheduling of programs to be broadcast.

The act makes it very clear that it is the SBS board, not the parliament or the minister, that is responsible for programming and editorial decisions. It is the duty of the SBS board:

… to ensure, by means of the SBS's programming policies, that the gathering and presentation by the SBS of news and information is accurate and is balanced over time and across the schedule of programs broadcast; and

     …      …      …

… to be aware of, and responsive to, community needs and opinions on matters relevant to the Charter …

That is the context in which we are operating. The honourable member is entitled to ask me, if he wishes, to intervene with the editorial decisions or programming decisions of the SBS, but he knows very well that this is just a rhetorical point. I have no power to do so, nor should I have any power to do so. The same applies to the ABC. As I have said many times, the media policies of Vladimir Putin are no more admirable than his foreign policy. We do not want to be living in a country where the government of the day can direct the public broadcasters as to what to say.

Having said that, the boards are responsible to manage their services—and I am talking about both public broadcasters now. They do have an obligation to make sure that their news and current affairs are accurate and impartial. They do have an obligation to comply with their charter and the various broadcasting codes. I understand and I empathise with what the honourable member has said about the resentment in his community about the Struggle Street. It was a very hard-hitting program. I would say its critical review was very positive overall, but if any people portrayed in the documentary, or their representatives, believe that there has been breaches of standards or codes or SBS's charter, then they should complain to the SBS. And if they are not happy with that, of course go to ACMA.

As the minister, as honourable members would imagine, I get hundreds of emails urging me to do something, often quite contradictory things, to the ABC or SBS. Sometimes I get an email saying they have been too far to the left, followed by one saying they have been too far to the right. I get the full gamut and the answer is always the same. I would say, though, that the boards have to take their responsibilities very seriously.

In terms of spectrum and the use of spectrum by broadcasters: we have a spectrum review underway, as you know, and the consultation papers have been released. The reform directions are clear. We are consulting with the industry and the community, obviously. But the rationale for having restrictions on the way in which high-definition or standard-definition channels can be broadcast is really no longer there. As a matter of principle, broadcasters should be able to determine whether they broadcast in standard definition or high definition. The requirement to broadcast the primary channel in standard definition was obviously made at a time when the majority of Australians in fact only had standard definition sets—that is obviously no longer the case.

I trust that will give the honourable member some comfort, but the government generally wants to rationalise and provide greater clarity and freedom for the use of spectrum—obviously, consistent with protecting the public interest—and have regulations that are less prescriptive and less restrictive of innovative uses of spectrum.

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

I am really pleased to have the opportunity to ask the minister a question and I also want to focus on the NBN. There are two parts to the question. Firstly, I would invite the minister to reflect generally on the contrast between the management of the NBN by the previous government and by this government. It would seem to me that those opposite are responsible for one of the most grotesque examples of mismanagement, literally, in Australian government history through their failure to manage the NBN successfully. There was an extraordinary cost blow-out—the project was going to cost $4.7 billion, then it was going to cost some percentage of $43 billion and then, as was determined just after the election, it was in fact going to cost more than $70 billion. There is also the fact that the previous government spent some $6 billion on a project to service about two per cent of the population and there are a whole host of other issues. I would invite the minister to reflect on that contrast.

Secondly, I specifically want to ask the minister a question as it pertains to my electorate and the issue of the NBN. I understand that one of the improvements in the government's NBN approach as compared to Labor's is the plan to use existing HFC cable to provide high-speed internet service. Can you please describe how the HFC rollout will be integrated into the broader NBN plan, and how that will benefit my electorate of Banks?

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

I thank the honourable member for raising both these points. He is a very passionate advocate and also a very knowledgeable advocate for his own electorate of Banks, given his years of experience in the television and communications sector.

Let me make this observation: about a third of Australian households are passed by the HFC networks of either Telstra or Optus, or both. These networks are currently capable of—and are in many areas—delivering a 100-megabit-per-second broadband service, using a technology known as DOCSIS 3.0. Until the arrival of the NBN, that was by and large the best fixed-line product you could get in Australia.

Under Labor—as I mentioned earlier in my remarks about the member for Chifley's electorate—the plan was to pay Telstra and Optus billions of dollars to switch these HFC networks off to broadband and overbuild them with fibre to the premises. That, obviously, has a gigantic cost both in dollars and in time.

Remarkably, while the Labor Party, in their negotiations with Telstra and Optus, paid those companies to switch these networks off and decommission them, render them valueless, they did not reserve the right to use any part of them and this is true for the copper network as well—a most extraordinary uncommercial decision, and one can only assume done in order to make it hard for a successor government to take a different approach. Anyway, we have successfully negotiated since the election with both Telstra and Optus to acquire ownership to those networks for no additional payment to them but with massive savings, tens of billions of savings, to NBN Coalition. and to the taxpayer.

What that means is that we will be able to do, for example, in the electorate of Banks where 77 per cent of premises are already passed by HFC, is, over the course of next year, integrate that HFC network into the NBN network. By 2017, the company is estimating it will, with the introduction of a newer technology, DOCSIS 3.1, be able to offer a one-gigabit-per-second broadband service on HFC. That is equivalent to the top service available on fibre-to-the-premises.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

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

The honourable member says it is amazing; it is. The development underlines the value of the coalition's very business-like commercial approach. We do not treat technology as ideology. Our focus is on the customer, purely on the customer, on the citizen. How do we get that citizen the best, fastest internet service as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible and hence as affordably as possible? So whatever works. The reality is that HFC, which of course is ubiquitous in many parts of the northern hemisphere in particular, is able to offer, with these essentially more efficient uses of spectrum, extraordinarily good services that are thoroughly competitive with fibre-to-the-premises.

The use of existing network infrastructure like HFC will, according to the strategic review, reduce the cost of building the NBN versus the counterfactual of Labor's all fibre-to-the-premises proposal by a staggering $29 billion and save many years. As the experience of building this network has gone on, it is becoming more apparent that while the savings in billions of dollars are incredibly material, the savings in time are equally so. There are great benefits from ubiquitous connectivity but postponing them for years if not for a decade to achieve a perfect solution by Labor is extraordinarily counterproductive and neglectful of the national interest.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to ask the minister a question about a very different copper network. In the areas that I am concerned about, the rollout in the suburbs surrounding the Bassendean exchange and the rollout in the suburbs of Armadale and Kelmscott, we certainly do not have the bright, shiny, high-velocity copper that the minister loves talking about. In fact, we have got a highly degraded rubbish copper that has difficulty even providing voice calls when it rains very often. It certainly has got very little extra capacity, even to deliver a modest ADSL service. My question is a very specific one, and I am going to wait because there is not much point in me asking the minister a question if the minister does not hear that question.

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

The minister is all ears.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excellent. Hopefully we can actually get a realistic answer to this.

I am very pleased to see that Bassendean is back on the rollout, and also that Armadale and Kelmscott are suburbs that are going to be included in the rollout over the next two years. But in both of these areas the minister has indicated, or NBN Co has indicated, that they will not be using fibre to the premises; it will be the multitechnology mix. I thought, 'Okay, we know anecdotally what is going on with our copper'. So I asked NBN Co, who are proposing, presumably, on the basis of these announcements to roll out a fibre-to-the-node option—and I have done a number of FOI requests—if they could they show us what documentation they had regarding the capacity and the state of the copper wire in those networks: those serviced by the Bassendean exchange and those in Armadale and Kelmscott. NBN Co came back to me, in both instances, to both FOI requests, and said that they have absolutely no documentation relating to the state and the capacity of the copper wire in these areas.

Minister, I have written to you and asked if you could then explain, given this businesslike and methodical way in which you are proposing to go about this rollout, how you are going to be able to roll out a technology when the medium that you are seeking to use is something about which you have absolutely zero knowledge? Please explain to me how we can be rolling out the NBN into Bassendean using the copper wire, when NBN Co tells us again and again that it has absolutely no information about this medium it is seeking to use?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question. I just want to draw her attention to the fact that in Bassendean, in particular, the honourable member will find that a major reason—not the major reason—for very poor internet connectivity is that many premises there are on what are called 'pair gain systems'. If the honourable member will bear with me: the way a pair gain system operates is that a given number of copper pairs, copper lines—wires—go to a device called a RIM and then more pairs come out the other side. The ratio may be four to one, so you might have 100 going in and 400 going out. It was used by the telcos—by Telstra, obviously—in order to service new estates. That is what has been described as a 'broadband blocker'. The honourable member will find that that is the major problem. It is not issues about poor joints and so forth in the copper.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

If the honourable member wants an answer, she should just let me go on. I am aware of the issue and I am answering the question. When you have fibre to the node, if you imagine that point where the RIM sits, which is where the 400 lines go out and only 100 are coming in, you take the fibre to that RIM and you install a node there. From that point those people who are on what had been a pair gain system go from having little or no broadband to having terrific broadband, because the fibre effectively brings the exchange to their doorstep because of that fibre connection.

There are many people who will get fibre to the premises. If they have very good ADSL or if they are in an area like the member for Chifley's, where they had good HFC and that was overbuilt, they may not, depending on the applications they use, actually notice a huge difference. They may not notice any difference at all. People on pair gain systems will see a transformative difference. So I just say to the honourable member that, on my advice, that is the major factor there.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, I just have two questions. I do not think that is an issue; it is not the only problem. Secondly, how do you know this when NBN Co says it has no information on the copper wire network in these areas? How do you know that?

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

The honourable member is confusing two issues. The NBN Co and, of course, the telcos know where pair gain systems are located. If you are saying to NBN Co, 'What do you know about the state of the copper—that is, whether the pits are broken, whether there are poor joints, whether there is water penetration through some of the binders and so forth?' then that information is not going to be available until such time as you check it out.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So you do not know. You do not know whether it is going to have to be done.

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

It is fine for the honourable member to question me, but she really has to listen to the answer, and this is the answer: the NBN Co has made an enormous provision for remediation of the copper infrastructure. Yes, there will be bridge taps. Yes, there will be bad joints. Any linear network, whether it is made out of copper or glass, is always going to have remediation issues. But the fact is that the NBN Co has made a very substantial provision—a very conservative provision—to remediate any of those breaches in the copper network. So, in summary, pair gain systems are a major part of the problem in the honourable member's electorate and the areas she describes, and they are transformed by FTTN. It is as though that technology was made to solve that problem.

As far as run-of-the-mill deterioration in linear infrastructure is concerned, of course it will be remediated and made good. It is enormous, but there is very conservative and more than adequate provision made to remediate it.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know the minister is aware that few issues galvanise rural communities more than lack of mobile phone access in mobile phone black spots. In my electorate, whether you are in Bigga, Wamboin or, indeed, Grabben Gullen, this is a major issue and it galvanises these rural communities. I will highlight that between 2007 and 2013 we made very little progress on this topic, despite the fact that during the course of the Labor government there were commitments of up to $90 billion for fibre into regions that already had HFC, as we have heard earlier today. So we took a promise to the 2013 election to invest $100 million to boost mobile phone coverage in outer metropolitan, regional and rural areas. I ask: when will the coalition deliver on that promise, what has community response been to the Mobile Black Spot Program, and when will communities start to benefit from the program?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is absolutely right that there is very strong community sentiment throughout regional and remote Australia about the need for improved mobile coverage, and I have certainly had the opportunity in the member's own electorate, as well as in some 40 other electorates around the country, to meet with Australians who are very frustrated about the fact that the previous government kept talking about how much money it was putting into the National Broadband Network but seemed to have its hands over its ears when it came to the question of improving mobile coverage in regional and remote Australia—so much so that, extraordinarily, it was the policy under the previous government that NBN Co was discouraged from engaging with the mobile operators to consider, for example, whether NBN backhaul could be made available to mobile operators to increase their penetration into regional and remote Australia, and there was very little going on in terms of co-location of mobile base stations onto NBN fixed wireless towers.

That was the policy of the previous government. As the member has rightly highlighted, the coalition have taken a very different approach. We took to the last election a policy commitment to spend $100 million on improving mobile coverage in regional and remote Australia. Since coming to government the minister has asked me to take responsibility for this program. We have been working through it in a speedy but methodical fashion. We issued guidelines late last year after consulting extensively with both the industry and the community.

One thing we did was say to Australians, 'Please nominate locations around Australia which you believe have inadequate mobile coverage and locations in regional and remote Australia which do not have mobile coverage and which, in your view, need it.' Some 6,000 locations were nominated and established on a public database. We then said to the mobile network operators: 'Please come forward with your proposals. Which of those locations would be ones that you could cover with a new base station? Tell us how much you will spend on that base station. Tell us the total capital cost of that base station. Tell us how much money you want out of the government's fund. Tell us whether you have been able to secure funding from co-funders, such as state governments, local councils and private businesses.' I am pleased to say that, as has been publicly announced, a number of state governments have made funding commitments—for example, the New South Wales government has committed $25 million, the Western Australian government has committed $35 million and indeed the Victorian government announced shortly before submissions closed from the mobile operators that they were committing money as well.

So let us look at where we are up to. On 19 April, the closing date for the three mobile operators—Telstra, Optus and Vodafone—to submit their proposals, they gave us a list of base stations that they propose to build and provided the information that I specified before. We are now going through a process of determining which base stations will be funded in accordance with the guidelines. We are on track to be able to announce the results by 30 June.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12:22 to 12:42

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

The question is that the proposed expenditure for the communications portfolio be agreed to.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Debate adjourned.