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

What is it about Malcolm Turnbull, pretending he will be by your side and then bailing the minute you need him most. When he worked out that he could not destroy the NBN he got the coalition to give it a big group hug. He promised that he would deliver it by 2016 and it would be faster, cheaper and would have a speed of 25 megabits. With the NBN, everything Malcolm promised turned out to be the wrong way. The speed should have gone up but it went down. Costs should have gone down but they went up. The rollout should have gone faster but it went slower. The suburbs with the worst broadband connections had to wait the longest, while the best suburbs were getting the NBN.

What happened as a result? What happened to this Svengali of fibre? What happened to the Rasputin of the rollout? He got the top job. He doesn't get demoted, he got the top job, as a result of the terrible service he provided on the NBN. The PM is getting some of his own frenemy treatment handed back to him—and I am not talking about Andrew Bolt, who wrote, 'Malcolm Turnbull [is] … delivering less than he promised for twice the price.' I do remember, as will everyone in this place, who was up there saying that this project—a project that had been demonised—was a great project, kicked off by Labor? It was none other than the member for North Sydney, who said it was the right thing to do. (Time expired)