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

I rise to celebrate more good news about the rollout of the NBN in Corangamite. Today I announce that work has started to deliver the NBN to around 8,000 premises in Torquay and Jan Juc. The NBN's monthly update shows that pre-construction activities, such as preparing pits and pipes ahead of the physical network construction, have also begun in Clifton Springs, Drysdale, Indented Head, Portarlington and St Leonards—to some 14,000 premises. It is important to point out that our fibre-to-the-node technology is delivering average download speeds of 91 megabits per second and upload speeds of 36 megabits per second. Those speeds would enable a household to stream up to 18 high-definition Netflix streams simultaneously.

Under the NBN's 18-month rollout plan for Corangamite, superfast broadband is being delivered to some 35,000 premises across the Surf Coast and the Bellarine Peninsula as well as the Colac Otway and Golden Plains regions. Another 5,000 premises are in line for fixed wireless broadband. And, yes, I continue to push hard to expedite the rollout of the NBN to Belmont, Highton, Waurn Ponds, Marshall and Grovedale, as well as to particularly challenging places like West Bellbrae and Shelford.

Fast broadband is essential infrastructure, and we are very proud we are getting on with the job of delivering this right across Corangamite and the nation.