Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Blaxland proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Prime Minister failing Australians with his second-rate NBN.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

Malcolm Turnbull has had one job for the last 2½ years and that is to build the NBN, and he has made a mess of it. Any objective analysis is that he has made a mess of it. Almost everything he promised he would do on the NBN he has failed to deliver. Now, almost every week, we have more evidence of the mess that he has made with the building of his second-rate NBN. I give you just three examples. The first and the worst is the massive blow-out in cost. Malcolm Turnbull said before the last election that he could build a slower second-rate NBN for $29½ billion. We now know that that has blown out to as much as $56 billion. It has blown out by almost 100 per cent. This is a man who says, 'I've got business experience. I used to be a merchant banker. I've got the skills to do the job.' He has blown the budget on the NBN by almost 100 per cent. If this were anybody else, they would have got the sack, but not this man—he was promoted.

The second example of the failure and the mess on the NBN is time—the massive blow-out in the time it is going to take to build the NBN. Malcolm Turnbull promised before the last election that everyone would have access to the NBN this year, 2016. That is now not going to happen. How many people do you think will get the NBN this year? It is not 100 per cent, it is not 50 per cent or 40 or 30 or 20 per cent. As we stand here today, less than 15 per cent of the country has access to the NBN. That is another massive broken promise, another massive fail by the Prime Minister who deceived the people of Australia at the last election by promising that everyone would get access to the NBN this year. If you are listening to this or watching this and you are still buffering, then blame the Prime Minister because he promised you would have access to the NBN this year. In fact, the former Prime Minister went one step further. He issued an open letter to the people of Australia on election night and said:

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

Well, it seems the former Prime Minister was wrong to trust Malcolm Turnbull on this and a lot of other things.

I am indebted to the member for Franklin because she has brought to my attention another document which is even and even more brazen. It is called 'The coalition's economic growth plan for Tasmania'. This does not promise that everyone would get access to the NBN by 2016. This says on page 23:

It says '2015'. The last time I checked the calendar it was 2016, and guess what? It has not been built in Tasmania. In fact, not one person in Tasmania has been switched on to their second-rate copper NBN yet. The people of Tasmania, just like people right across the country, have been duped by this Prime Minister and this deceitful government.

The third example is copper and the massive blow-out in the cost of fixing the copper. Late last year I told the parliament that we had found out in estimates that the government was buying 2,000 kilometres or two million metres of new copper to build their second-rate NBN—enough copper to link Australia to New Zealand. What we have fond out now is that that is the tip of the iceberg. It is not two million metres. We have now found out from an answer to a question on notice that the government are planning to buy 8½ million metres of copper. Just to put that into perspective, that is enough copper to connect Brisbane to Beijing or Perth to Pakistan or Kalgoorlie to Kuala Lumpur and back. That is how much new copper they have to buy to make this second-rate network work.

But that is not the worst of it. Through a leaked document that was revealed in the press late last year it has also now been revealed that the cost of fixing the second-rate copper network has blown out by over 1,000 per cent. When the strategic review came out in December 2013, I was scolded by the now Prime Minister for saying he had not properly allowed enough money to fix the copper. He said in this House, opposite me, that:

The critics of the coalition's approach to broadband have claimed that the coalition has not paid attention to the need for remediation of the existing copper plant … As honourable members will see when studying this report, that matter has been taken most carefully into account … and very conservative assumptions have been taken …

He did not tell us then what those conservative assumptions were but, thanks to this leaked document, we know that then when they released the strategic review they assumed that it would cost $55 million to fix Telstra's old copper network to make their second-rate NBN work. We also know from this document that it is not going to cost $55 million; it is now going to cost $641 million. In other words, it is a blow-out of more than 1,000 per cent. By any objective analysis, this is a massive mess and the Prime Minister has no-one to blame for this but himself.

In estimates last night it was revealed that there are even more problems. In the first places where they are now switching on their second-rate copper NBN, guess what? It is not working. It is not working properly. Instead of getting the faster broadband that they were promised, people are now getting slower broadband services than they were getting with ADSL.

Here are just a couple of examples. Max Taylor from Gorokan recently switched over from ADSL to fibre to the node. He used to get eight megabits per second. Now he is getting as low as three megabits per second. That is slower than his old ADSL. Here is another one. Laurence Alderton from Belmont says: 'I have been connected to the NBN for two days with TPG's 25 megabits plan. What a joke! Peak-time download speeds of around four megabits—that is less than my old ADSL2.' Here is another one. Jan Rigo's elderly parents in Bundaberg have now gone from 12 megabits per second with ADSL down to as low as two megabits per second. As a result, these elderly people can no longer Skype their children and grandchildren in the UAE and Korea. We have lots more stories like this. They are flooding in to affected electorate offices, both Labor and coalition. It is a right royal stuff-up and more evidence of the mess that this Prime Minister has made of the NBN. He promised people faster broadband speeds; in fact, they are getting the reverse. The boss of nbn last night in estimates admitted that, saying, 'I am certain these problems are real.' In a minute we are going to hear from the government and they are going to crow about what a fabulous job they have done on the NBN. My response to that is: fix this mess. Fix this problem.

This is where we are: the cost of their second-rate NBN has doubled, the time it will take to build this second-rate NBN has more than doubled, the cost of fibre to the node has tripled, up from $600 to $1,600, the cost of fixing the copper has blown out by more than 1,000 per cent and in the places where they are starting to roll this mess out it is not working properly. Let me be very, very clear: this mess is going to haunt this Prime Minister. It is evidence of his failure to deliver and evidence that he cannot be trusted. It is evidence that he says one thing before an election and then does another. In the longer term it will be evidence of his bad judgement and lack of vision and that he just simply got this wrong.

I will give one more example to prove it. Before the last election in his election policy the Prime Minister said, 'I've got an example from America to show why fibre to the node is better than fibre to the premises.' He gave the example of Verizon and AT&T. Verizon built fibre to the premises; AT&T went and built fibre to the node. He said, 'AT&T made the right decision because it was cheaper and they will make the same amount of money.' Guess what AT&T announced in December last year? They are rolling out fibre to the premises for 14 million homes across the country and, in places where they rolled out fibre to the node, they are going back and building fibre to the premises. That is what is going to have to happen here in Australia. It is going to take a Labor government to do it—to come back and finish off the NBN and fix Malcolm Turnbull's mess.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Territories, Local Government and Major Projects) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The shadow minister is in a more desperate position week by week, as the rollout inexorably continues and gathers pace. Here he is, trying to pretend it is not succeeding. He is like the black knight of parliament, saying, 'Only a flesh wound,' as the NBN homes passed reach 1.7 million, many multiples of what Labor ever achieved; as the NBN premises pass rate passes 10,000 a week; as the fibre-to-the-node rollout reached 123,000 in December of last year; as NBN revenue for the six months ended 31 December 2015 reached $164 million, more than double the revenue in the previous corresponding period; as HFC trials are conducted in multiple states; as the fixed wireless network reaches 1,265 base stations; as NBN successfully launched its first satellite; as wireless premises covered reach 342,000; as NBN is on track to meet 500,000 fibre-to-the-node premises by 30 June this year and adding 8,000 premises a week; and as the NBN net promoter score, what its customer assess it at, is at plus 31, an extraordinarily positive result. Yet here is the same tired refrain from the shadow minister, 'Oh, it's a failure.' He is like the black knight of the parliament, saying, 'Only a flesh wound,' as another limb gets lopped off.

The facts are inexorably mounting up. We know that there are connections to over 600,000 premises currently under construction and that design work is underway for connections to a further 1.3 million premises. We know that the NBN is on track to expand its footprint by 15,000 premises per week, rising to 25,000 per week by midyear. How does this compare with what Labor was delivering in its distinctly underwhelming tenure during its time in government, when it sought to rollout a broadband network and failed miserably? We know that, when Labor left office, barely 300,000 premises could be connected to the NBN after four and a half years, yet in two and a half years we are at 1.7 million and the rate is rising inexorably every week. Yet, in the face of these undeniable facts, the shadow minister clings to his self-deluded belief that Labor could do better—ignorant and completely denying the dismal reality of what Labor actually did when it was in power.

Let us have a look at some of the advantages of fibre to the node, which the shadow minister has been so critical of. The cost of rolling out this technology is markedly lower than fibre to the premises. It is in line with the corporate plan expectations at around $2,300 per premises—around half the $4,419 per premises that fibre to the premises would cost. Very significantly—despite the breathless rhetoric from the shadow minister—the reality is that customers are just as comfortable with fibre to the node as they are with fibre to the premises. We had a couple of anecdotes from the shadow minister, but where is the data?

Mr Husic interjecting—

He ignored the data even though it has been published by the NBN. Both fibre to the node and fibre to the premises customers report a satisfaction score of 7.7 out of 10. So, when you compare the satisfaction of fibre to the node and fibre to the premises customers, you see the same satisfaction rating of 7.7.

The shadow minister seems incredulous that the CEO of NBN, when presented with instances of customers with concerns, would say, 'I am certain those problems are real.' But let us be clear: one of the overwhelming differences between the coalition's approach to the NBN and Labor's approach to the NBN is that the coalition has always been frank about the difficulties and challenges of rolling out this network. After Labor engaged in six years of treating the NBN as a generator of photo opportunities, when Labor treated the NBN as a provider of political services rather than of broadband services, what you saw under the former Minister for Communications, now Prime Minister, was an insistence on transparency and openness with the Australian people. When the current Prime Minister became the communications minister he insisted that NBN report every week on its website actual numbers of premises passed—the detail on how the rollout was actually performing. This was all part of turning the company around from the dismal performance—the complete lack of operational competence—that we saw under Labor and getting the company on track towards systematically increasing the numbers of premises being connected each week.

Are there instances where customers are not getting the service that they should be? In a network of this scale, of course there are. Is a chief executive officer going to acknowledge those problems? Of course he will, because the whole approach with the NBN, under the coalition, has been to frankly admit that this is an extremely ambitious project, to focus on openness and transparency, and to get capable people onto the board and onto the executive, with globally qualified executives like Bill Morrow leading the company, so that we can steadily, sustainably and consistently improve the operational performance of NBN and get the rollout going where it needs to go.

Let us just remember the chaotic mess that we had under Labor, starting with a sweeping but ill-conceived promise from Messrs Rudd, Conroy, Tanner and Swan in April 2009 that it was going to be a 100 megabit per second network and it was going to cost $43 billion. It was going to be such a great investment that then Prime Minister Rudd said in April 2009 that mums and dads should invest in the bonds issued to fund NBN. If there has been a more negligent piece of financial advice given by a Prime Minister in Australian history, I will be very surprised. We were told at the time that there was going to be substantial private sector investment. Remember that claim from Labor? Of course, about a year later the implementation study conducted by KPMG-McKinsey was slipped out in the dead of night the Sunday before budget in 2010. Guess what it said. It said that the private sector would not touch the NBN with a barge pole, because it was such an ill-conceived project, so all the money had to come from taxpayers. That is Labor's approach to financial management, and that is the mess that we have been charged with cleaning up.

The Prime Minister, in his capacity as communications minister, did a truly remarkable job in turning around what was a mess. We had absolutely incompetent execution by Labor. After 4½ years they had reached slightly over 300,000 premises. What is their suggestion now? This is perhaps the most troubling issue of all. What is it that the shadow minister is seriously suggesting to the Australian people should happen if Labor returns to power? He is claiming that if Labor returns to power the NBN will return to a fibre-to-the-premises approach. How has this suggestion been received—not by political activists but by industry participants? What did the chief executive of M2, one of the major telcos in Australia, have to say about this suggestion from the shadow minister? He said:

I think any further change in deployment model would be ill-advised ... I wouldn't advocate for any change.

That is what the industry said, not politicians. What did TheAustralian Financial Review say about this brilliant idea? TheAustralian Financial Review said:

Labor has no credibility in this area. The NBN as conceived under Rudd Labor turned an important piece of national infrastructure, running to a sensible timetable into a Kevin Rudd vanity project, with no real idea of the costs, that ran to a political schedule. It went from $4.7 billion in 2007, to $42 billion in 2009 to cost at least $56 billion today.

The facts are clear. The coalition government in 2013 inherited a chaotically mismanaged mess from Labor. The current Prime Minister in his time as communications minister did an extraordinary job in turning the company around. There is still a big job ahead, but we are well on track with 1.7 million premises and climbing steadily.

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

This is a really important debate because the NBN is critical to our future. We are operating in a global environment. If our telecommunications are not of world standard we will not be able to compete, and that is particularly critical in Western Australia. With the mining boom winding down and unemployment ratcheting up, we need to have diversification within our economy. We need to move to 21st century jobs, and we need the digital infrastructure that underpins that. But, despite the endless rhetoric that we get from the Prime Minister about technological innovation and agility, we are failing the future with our substandard attempt at a national broadband network.

My electorate of Perth is pretty much a microcosm of how this government has not only trashed the real NBN but failed in its own second-rate version. When the Prime Minister announced broadband, its one saving grace was supposed to be that relying on the degraded copper network and delivering only 20th century speeds might be an inferior product but we are all going to get it a lot quicker. We are all going to get it by the end of 2016. So 'sooner' was one of the tag lines for the coalition's broadband. Let's see how that has played out in Perth.

I want to talk first of all about the Bassendean exchange for the suburbs of Ashfield, Bassendean, Beechboro, Eden Hill, Kiara, Lockridge and Morley. They were all on the schedule when Labor lost government in 2013. They were set to receive fibre to the premises by 2014. The preliminary work had all been done. We had spent $2 million upgrading the Telstra exchange, so it was all ready. Yet we noticed in 2014, when the first rollout plan came from this government, that something was missing. None of those suburbs had been included on the rollout. We then campaigned very strongly about this and, lo and behold, the next year they were put back onto the rollout—but the very earliest that they will be seeing this start is the end of 2016. That will be the start of construction. We know how lousy the copper infrastructure is in those suburbs. We know how the voice calls drop out when it rains, so we know that the likelihood of this being in place even by 2017 is very unlikely. So it is later, slower and more expensive.

We go to our next set of suburbs, even closer to the CBD, which operate out of the Maylands exchange—Bedford, Maylands, Embleton, Inglewood, Noranda and Dianella—and the NBN is not even a distant light on the horizon. Despite sitting on the lowest band for broadband quality in the nation, these suburbs are not on the three-year rollout. I will let the residents tell you in their own words about the situation. Sheila Pretsel from Bayswater says:

The section of Bayswater where I live does not have Internet access—period. This means that residents must use Wifi dongles—and the reception is hit and miss.

This also means no Netflix, updating of BluRay software, no ability to use the smart system linked to MyAir, etcetera. It's like living in the 1980s.

This is Maylands: the land of the mullet.

Betty Wong from Bedford tell us:

Though the exchange is diagonally 100m across from our house, we're unable to access iinet naked or ADSL2+.

Bayswater resident Scott Overheu says:

People don't believe me when I tell them that a YouTube video still buffers at the lowest definition they have.

Unfortunately I live in Bayswater, and with nine new residents in my street with infill, it just gets slower and slower.

And Anne Blake from Dianella says:

Looking at maps of the rollout in the Eastern States, I sometimes wonder if WA is treated as an afterthought.

Sadly when the rollout is completed we will still have a second class system which will no doubt feel the strain as more and more demands are placed on it.

This is not a niche issue. Our campaign over the past two years has proven one thing—nothing arouses passions in the electorate more than missing out on the 21st century technology we need for our future. Just this morning a Highgate resident, Steven Ebsary, emailed me his thoughts on the NBN— (Time expired)

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I might say nothing arouses passion in the electorate like utter nonsense, and that is what we have been hearing from the other side. People in regional and rural Australia know this more than anyone else because under the Labor Party's rollout of the NBN, we were neglected—as we were neglected when it came to the rollout of the mobile-phone towers. In six years of Labor, what did we get? A big, fat zero. What were we going to get from them for the NBN? We were going to get a system that was rolled out into regional and rural Australia last, and we were going to get it in 2025-2026.

I am happy to use my electorate as an example, but let's go to what the shadow minister had to say at the outset. He talked about a blow-out in costs, but what has happened to his memory? He had the audacity to talk about a blow-out in costs. What happened under Labor? Huge blow-outs in cost. But what if we go back to the Labor regime? We are talking about $74 billion-$84 billion and completion in 2026. How can you get up here with a straight face and say this?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are talking about time under Labor. The NBN Co. failed to meet every rollout target—every single one.—

Mr Husic interjecting—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Chifley!

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Even your minister, who is now just a senator, says, 'We clearly underestimated, I think it is fair to say, the construction model could be legitimately criticised.' That is Senator Stephen Conroy. He also said: 'We wouldn't have been so aggressive if we'd known how tough it was for the company. That was an area where we were overly ambitious.' I can understand and even empathise with those who are disappointed with the progress of the fibre rollout. That is not ours—that is your side. Having heard all this, what is the Labor Party going to do? They are going to go back to their broken model. They cannot learn. It is like every other area—six years of failure and they want to go back to it!

The Australian people will not be fooled and people in regional and rural Australia will not be fooled. What we will see in my electorate is a completely different story. In very welcome news, NBN construction will be occurring right across Wannon by the end of 2017. That is exceptionally good news. If we still had a Labor government, do you know what year I would be mentioning? 2026, but we still could not have any additional mobile-phone towers. I think it was probably taking the plan from the beer coaster and having it mapped properly that was probably one of the key reasons, but there were probably others. In Wannon by the end of 2017 construction will have started right across the electorate, and that is very good news for my constituents. That is the type of news that gets them passionate about government and about what government can deliver. As we all know, we need to make sure that in regional and rural Australia we have the ability to take advantage of the capabilities that broadband can provide. We have farmers with sophisticated business models who need proper telecommunications to be able to deliver for their businesses. (Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have news for the member for Wannon. He will be extremely disappointed when the NBN starts rolling out in his electorate. The rollout of Malcolm Turnbull's fibre-to-the-node NBN in Shortland electorate has been an abject failure. The contribution by the member for Wannon shows that he really does not understand what is happening. The people of Shortland electorate waited with great anticipation and expectation for the NBN to be rolled out in our area—there was great excitement in the community.

Many of my constituents rushed off very quickly to connect the NBN, only to be devastated by a litany of disasters. I hate to say this, but my electorate office has become an NBN complaints office. I will share some of those complaints with the House this afternoon. Among the disasters that I mentioned are: services disconnected; a failure to reconnect them; no service whatsoever; and poor communication between NBN and the providers. And it is not just one provider—it does not matter which provider it is, there is a problem, whether it is Telstra, Optus, Westnet, Dodo or TPG. All the constituents in Shortland are having problems with their provider and NBN; it is not a provider problem; it is an NBN problem. Be really aware of it—it is not a provider problem; it is an NBN problem. It is not one provider; it is all providers because the NBN is not delivering.

Now I will share my first example with you. This is Jess. She has had five appointments rescheduled just to connect to the NBN—that is a technician. This is what she had to say: 'When the technician came today, he said, "You have got no connection, no phone line connection." He came back and had another look and he finally found it.' At 12 o'clock today she finally was connected to the NBN; that has taken since 5 January to connect.

This has been a disaster. The cost blow-out has been highlighted, as has the failure to deliver NBN. Then there is the service and the speed and, of course, the broken promises that Prime Minister Turnbull made to the Australian people. The one thing the people in the Shortland electorate have learnt is that you cannot trust the Turnbull government. The Turnbull government is absolutely no different from the Abbott government. They have failed the people of Shortland and, I am sure, people throughout Australia when it comes to the NBN.

I promised I would share a few examples with you. Bruce and Rita had problems with their NBN and Optus. They have had no service since 1 February. They cannot receive phone calls and they cannot dial out. They are having enormous problems.

And then there is Jerry, from Ballantyne. He works from home. He is a director. He switched from ADSL2 and he was getting 14 mps. But listen to this. He is now receiving as little as four or five mps. It is an absolute disgrace. And it is a broken promise to the people of Australia. Why should a director like Jerry have his business put in jeopardy because this government fails to deliver what it promised?

And then there is a Phillip, who says he is no tech guru. On 12 January he signed up with ISP Westnet. It took four days to get the internet working and he is still without a landline as of 5 February.

And the list goes on and on and on. This government promised the people of Shortland electorate that they were going to get a fast broadband connection. But they have not received it. This government have tricked the people of Shortland and they are tricking the people of Australia. To Karen, Deirdre, Edward, Ian, Des, Maxwell Taylor, whom the shadow minister spoke about, David and Belmont meals on wheels—even Belmont meals on wheels!—I am sorry that this government is so inept at delivering what they promised. You deserve decent fast speed broadband and Malcolm Turnbull— (Time expired)

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the member for Blaxland coming in here in a nice conservative blue tie and me wearing a red tie, I had hoped we might be on a reverse unity ticket! But five minutes into his speech we were disappointed. And so were the members of the gallery; I saw their faces drop when he started going into the negative diatribe that we so often hear. Going back to the corporate plan for Labor in 2010, it claimed that the NBN would pass almost one million premises and we know that they failed to get barely 100,000. That is only half the size of the city of Geelong and less than the size of the city of Gosford. We are talking about major regional centres in Australia—and they performed poorly, not even reaching those expectations.

Ms Henderson interjecting—

Exactly, member for Corangamite. Under Labor, nbn co failed to meet every single target. The member for Blaxland leaves the chamber. He is going back to look at the business plan—the business plan that they did not even do. It is fundamental in major government infrastructure policies to do a cost-benefit analysis, to do a business plan. Anyone with a business background, like my good colleagues around me here, has been through that rigour, diligence and discipline in undertaking business plans.

Mr Taylor interjecting—

I note the comment by the member for Hume. I will just reflect on one of the comments from Labor opposition speakers. They said that stories are flooding in from electorate offices about the poor performance of the NBN. Let's look at one example that the member for Hume informed us of recently—the NBN fixed line to some 25 towns in his area and the NBN fixed wireless to some 35 towns in his area. Those are the roundabout figures, member for Hume. Correct me if I am wrong. Those people in the member for Hume's electorate, especially in the east, are rejoicing. They have got NBN, they have got better broadband, because of the way this federal government has successfully implemented the NBN, managed the company in the way it should be managed, undertaken business plans and has effective local members. Whether it be the member for Hume, the member for Wannon, the member for Longman, the member for Corangamite or the member for Barton, they have each individually got results in their local electorates, pushing the case for more effective broadband and NBN.

Let's revisit some recent history of the project itself. I want to go back to some of the fundamentals of the complexity of this program. It is the largest and most complex infrastructure project ever embarked on, and our corporate plan is the most rigorous and detailed financial planning document. As the scientist, politician and writer Benjamin Franklin once said, if you fail to plan you are planning to fail. How apt is that. I see the people in the gallery nodding their heads and acknowledging the work of this government. They have good NBN. They have given us the thumbs up. They know that this government is on the right track. That is why they come in this chamber—to hear facts, to hear success, to hear execution, to hear corporate governance and to hear a successful government implementing a rigorous, detailed plan. That is why they come into this chamber and hear what the government is doing.

Let's look at satisfaction with broadband. There have been surveys recently that have highlighted that the levels of satisfaction with broadband services using fibre to the node are the same as those using the gold-plated fibre to the premises. What value for money we are delivering. It was not so long ago that we had former Prime Minister Julia Gillard complaining about the gold-plating of our electricity networks. Again I see the people in the gallery shaking their heads about the gold-plating of electricity networks and those utility bills that they hate. But when we talk about the NBN they are happy. They are happy that they are getting NBN, they are happy that their broadband is improving and they are happy that the coalition government is delivering.

Let me finish with a good little story from Murray cod farmer Noel Penfold. He used to live in a broadband blackspot. But since hooking up to the National Broadband Network he has more than tripled his exports of this native fish to China. He said: 'The internet was very poor before that to Wagga Wagga. But now it has improved and I'm exporting far more to China.' This is due to the success of our story on the NBN, the success of our trade agreements and the success of this work of the government. I look forward to the opposition coming forward with maybe a better business case and corporate plan than they did previously.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to speak on this MPI this afternoon because Canberrans are furious. They are furious about the fact that the southern parts of my electorate are not even on the rollout map. They are furious about the fact that they are just one big blank when it comes to the NBN rollout. What does that mean? Here we are in the nation's capital. What does that mean for the people of the nation's capital? Coalition governments have got form when it comes to the nation's capital. In 1996, 15,000 jobs were cut here and in this round with the coalition government we have lost 8,500. Coalition governments have got complete form when it comes to lack of investment in the nation's capital. Sir Robert Menzies would be turning in his grave. He respected this capital. He invested in this capital. He built this capital up. What have coalitions done since then? Just tear it apart. There were 15,000 jobs lost in 1996 and 8,500 with this coalition government.

I have comments here from people in my electorate. Melanie said:

My family lived in Theodore for 7 years and we now live in Calwell. My 3 children go to the local schools (Calwell High and Theodore Primary) and my husband runs a small business from a home office. I am a public servant, I study part time and I often work from home. Slow internet has a real impact on our day to day lives, our ability to contribute to the economy and our educations. We are a hard working family and we make a genuine contribution through our taxes. Our lives are increasingly reliant on the internet and three years is too long for us to have to wait to have this fixed.

Adrian said:

In global standards we are a third world country when it comes to internet download speeds and pricing! Latvia has faster average internet speeds than we do damn it!

And Matthew said:

It is hard to believe, and embarrassing to admit, that there is no high speed broadband access for some people in the capital of the country.

Another constituent said:

I stand with you in that Canberra is in dire need of attention on this matter. Although there is a relatively small population here, as such a hub of Government and government-contractor activity, the productivity that has been enhanced by the introduction of the internet is being bottle-necked by the poor standard of our network. Not to mention how embarrassing it is for us to have foreign representatives living here whose communications networks back home undoubtedly—

like Latvia—

are vastly better than our own.

Of the lack of NBN Vicky said:

I am trying to establish a new business and work from home. The lost earnings are immeasurable—

because she cannot get access and she cannot work from home. I have heard from other constituents who want to work from home and run their small businesses from home but have to go to the expense and inconvenience of hiring an office because of the poor internet speeds here. They cannot actually have a home based small business. Let me go back to Vicky. She said:

The lost earnings are immeasurable and the inconvenience unacceptable.

These are some of the comments I have received from Canberrans on the NBN this year—just this year; it is only February. You should see the dray load of comments I had last year, particularly after the shadow minister had an NBN community consultation with my community.

It is crystal clear that the Prime Minister is failing Canberrans when it comes to the NBN. Now when it comes to our wonderful city, there is a lot to boast about—we are the most highly educated population in the country; we have got the highest rate of volunteering in the country; we have the highest average income in the country; we are the healthiest population in the country—but there is one aspect of our city that I will not boast about and that, in fact, I am fairly ashamed of and that is our internet connectivity. Despite being the national capital, being home to government and having defence, world-leading universities, scientific and cultural institutions and embassies here, under the Prime Minister's rollout map large parts of Canberra are not even visible. As I said before, they are not even visible—there ain't no plan for parts of my electorate. For huge swathes of my electorate there ain't no rollout plan for the NBN. They are invisible to this government and nbn co. They are not even on the map. This is despite the fact that these suburbs in Canberra have the lowest rating in the country for both availability and quality of broadband—the lowest in the country. We are talking about the nation's capital here. It is breathtaking. It is appalling. It is absolutely outrageous.

I call on the Turnbull government to prioritise Canberra on the NBN rollout map. I have written to the minister. I would like a response, Minister, to my call for prioritisation. (Time expired)

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really pleased to speak to this MPI today because it clearly exposes the fact that the only second-rate NBN in Australia was the one that was going to be delivered by Labor—the party who when in government promised one thing but then delivered little more than press releases and promises that stretched into the never-never for years. It is no exaggeration to say that under the previous Labor government the NBN was one of the most poorly managed projects in the history of the Commonwealth. When they announced it with great fanfare, then Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Conroy extravagantly promised that the rollout would be complete by 2018 and would cost the government no more than $26 billion. Of course Labor representatives in my electorate on the Central Coast did the same.

In April 2013, former Labor MP Deborah O'Neill and Minister Conroy came to Gosford and pushed a big red button on the Gosford waterfront, claiming our region was open for business thanks to the NBN. In fact, the then member for Robertson said: 'We love this town and we love where we live, but we need jobs and need something to transform this area. It's time to come to Gosford and do some business.' Well it is time to come to Gosford and do business, so it is pretty ironic to see Senator O'Neill now actively campaigning against the Turnbull government's commitment to deliver 600 new federal jobs to Gosford, but I digress. Labor claimed that their NBN was a magic bullet, but when the gloss of the press release and the shiny red button wore off, it was a mess—it was a mess around Australia and a mess on the Central Coast. For instance, despite Labor's claims on the coast that a massive 90 per cent of premises in and around Gosford—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You may wish to listen to this, members opposite, because this is your record. Labor claimed that a massive 90 per cent of premises in and around Gosford were so-called open for business with the NBN when in actual fact 90 per cent of them were classified service class 0 or service class 1, meaning that, despite the fanfare and the press release, a lot of work was required before those people who wanted a service could actually connect. What is even worse, despite all of this fanfare during the election and during their time in government, when we came into government there were little more than 200 premises connected in my electorate.

What a farce—to tell businesses and families that Gosford was 'open for business', only to discover that, despite Labor's press releases, they could not actually access it at their premise. In fact, Labor were so obsessed with delivering fibre to the press release in Gosford that they forgot that the focus in unlocking superfast broadband is supposed to be about actually getting residents, businesses and families connected. Labor sold people in my electorate a dud deal. In contrast, this coalition government has spent more than two years cleaning up the mess in my electorate and across Australia. We have sought to clean up the mess left to us by those opposite home by home and piece by piece while, at the same time, rolling out the NBN to more homes and businesses sooner, cheaper and much more reliably than Labor.

This government has a responsible strategy to roll out a more affordable multitechnology mix. The case for the multitechnology approach is clear. It is far better for productivity on the Central Coast, for instance, to get fast broadband to premises quickly, than to deliver extremely fast broadband to just an exclusive few years and years down the track. It is like waiting for Godot! You can see the benefits of the Turnbull government's approach in the NBN's latest half-yearly results, as the member for Hindmarsh alluded. They reveal initial customer research showing the level of satisfaction with broadband services delivered through the fibre-to-the-node technology is the same for those using the gold-plated fibre to the premise. I grant you that our approach involves far less fanfare than that of members opposite. But the half-yearly results are a ringing endorsement of our approach. In fact, the NBN rollout is accelerating, with 1.7 million homes and businesses now able to order a connection. We are finally back on track with the NBN rollout, with plans to expand the footprint by 15,000 premises per week, rising to 25,000 per week by the middle of the year. Ultimately, of course, the goal is to connect eight million premises by 2020 across all access technologies.

But let me spend the few remaining seconds I have letting members opposite know about the record that we have delivered to my electorate in just two short years. In my electorate we now have more than 67,000 premises on the rollout schedule or already connected. Around half of these are only weeks away from being 'ready for service'—not simply passed but ready for service—in more than 20 suburbs, like Woy Woy, Empire Bay, Pearl Beach, Saratoga and Tascott. (Time expired)

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Incompetent', 'hopeless', 'useless' and 'a joke' are the words that people in central Victoria and regional Victoria use to describe this government's NBN plan. You need look no further than to what has happened with the NBN towers to the north of the electorate. These towers were built in 2013 under the former Labor government but, under this government, two and a bit years on, they have not been switched on. How incompetent are you as a government not to even switch these towers on? The towers of Goornong, Huntly North, Lake Eppalock and Ladys Pass have not been switched on. Businesses look out their window to a tower that has not been switched on. Homes look out their window to a tower that has not been switched on.

Even more frustrating is the fact that we did not get an answer as to why until six months ago, when nbn co finally revealed that the relay tower that was to be built on Mt Camel was not built—that it has been rejected by VCAT. Here we are 12 months since that rejection and nbn co and this government have refused to come up with an engineering solution. To this day, those four towers have not been switched on. To this day, there is no engineering solution to fix the relay tower to make sure that these people get access to fixed wireless. That is how incompetent this government is when it comes to delivering the NBN to people in regional Victoria and, in particular, to central Victoria.

Since this government got elected and they tore up the NBN plan for central Victoria, not one extra home has been added to the availability of broadband. The homes that are connected were connected because of contracts signed under the former Labor government. This government gets elected, rips up the plan and Bendigo's rollout timetable is delayed by two years—we are knocked off the plan. It still has not happened. We have since been told that we will get fibre to the node.

This is why we have a blackspot problem in regional Australia and, in particular, central Victoria. Because people do not have access to fast-speed broadband in their homes, they rely on their mobile phones to do their daily internet. That is clogging up the mobile phone network, and that is why we have blackspot issues in the heart of Bendigo, or five kilometres from Bendigo, or in Woodend, or in Kyneton or in Castlemaine. There is one street in Woodend where they have been offered four different types of internet services. Some homes are on ADSL2; some homes are on ADSL1; some homes have been told, 'Just use your internet on your mobile phone'; and some homes have been told, 'You'll have to get satellite services.' That is one street in one town in my electorate. What a mess—five different options, including none at all, which is option No. 5.

These are areas that rely on the internet for their businesses. These are areas that rely on the internet for online learning. These are areas where homes rely on the internet for programs. I receive daily complaints from people in my electorate saying that they cannot get access to ADSL or to decent, reliable internet in their home. I have written to the minister. I have asked the former minister and the current minister to come to central Victoria over and over again. The former minister cancelled the meeting because he became the Prime Minister and said, 'Sorry; the people of central Victoria no longer matter to me.' Yet during the election he came to Bendigo and promised the people of Bendigo that they would get fast-speed broadband sooner and cheaper. What a con! It is an absolute con and it is a lie. He promised they would get it in 2016, and here we are in 2016 and the people of Bendigo and central Victoria still do not have it. He promised it would be cheaper, yet the cost has doubled—not to mention that it is also slower. That is because the internet that he is promising, the fibre to the node that has been promised for central Victoria, is relying on a copper network.

How incompetent are you to buy back old, ageing technology? Telstra think it is great. They have sold a dud asset back to a government. There is nothing but incompetence when it comes to the NBN. People in central Victoria know it, as does regional Victoria. Coalition MPs can bury their heads in the sand and pretend it is not an issue, but it is, and every single day there are people in their electorates, like in my electorate, complaining. (Time expired)

John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about how the NBN is powering ahead in Calare. Not long ago I heard the member for Wannon make the point that, at the election, his electorate would not be on the radar until 2026. He is fortunate because Calare was not even mentioned. I just heard one of the opposition members talk about Australia and Australians—and I note they talk about Australians in the heading of their MPI. The people of Calare had every right to believe they were not Australians, because they were not mentioned.

The comprehensive three-year construction plan released last year was fantastic news for Calare. But as we were able to tell them very early on in this parliament, the priorities were wholly changed when we got into government. It was those who needed it, rather than the capital cities, that were going to be highlighted and dealt with as early as possible. The rollout will see 49,700 premises in Calare hooked up to the high-speed network. Under our government a number of towns in our region will now be connected up to the high-speed network much earlier than was expected even at the start of this rollout.

The fixed-line build commenced in my home town of Molong in December. In actual fact, when I went onto the fixed wireless on the fringe of Molong, I think I was the first federal member of parliament to go onto fixed line. The build is also now underway in Orange, with it expected to be switched on progressively midway through this year. A very high speed data firm in Orange contacted me recently. They work around the world. They have recently put 24 people on. They are putting another 16 on. They asked me to contact the NBN, and I was able tell them they are actually about 50 yards from where the line will, hopefully, be ready for them in August, and they are going to put their own line straight onto it. That will be their choice and it will cost them something, but Telstra were going to charge them $110,000 a year to be on NBN broadband. This is a godsend to them.

The rollout will then continue in Bathurst, Parkes, Blayney, Forbes and Oberon early next year, as well as in the Lithgow area. In this short year or so, Calare already has 40 fixed wireless towers operating successfully, including in places like Molong West, Oberon and Neville. Constituents Yvonne Furner and Rita Cobbe of Carcoar moved from Wyatt Roy's electorate of Longman in Queensland to the sunny pastures of Calare at the start of 2014. Despite assurances from their retail service provider that they would have ADSL2 connection at their new address, they were forced to rely on mostly unsatisfactory internet by the interim satellite. Yvonne and Rita spent 18 fruitless months on what they describe as a 'revolving roundabout' until I found out that they were able to get onto the fixed wireless NBN. Within three weeks of that they were connected to the wireless tower at Carcoar and they are enjoying, in their words, 21st century internet.

In just a couple more months the first of the two satellites, which between them will be able to handle 800,000 domiciles or contacts, will ensure people living in topographically challenging areas will not miss out and will receive extraordinarily good internet—chalk and cheese to the current satellite system, which is basically overloaded to blazes. It will be so much better than what we have had up until now, particularly in my electorate, because we obviously cannot put everybody on ground or even wireless. Funnily enough, it is not in the remote Far West that it is all going to be needed, although they obviously will have to use it as well. It is people just on the western side of the Great Dividing Range in places like Oberon, Lithgow and the like where the topography is very bad. Thank heaven there are two satellites. The first one has gone up, and it is an amazing story. It will look after those people.

Jeff Peak from Peak Connect, whose family owned company in Bathurst is thrilled to be a registered service provider for the NBN, said the NBN is a huge step forward for country people, and the way it had been reprioritised has been very good for us. (Time expired)

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion is concluded.