Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a concern that many local constituents raise with me all the time, and that is this government's very slow rollout of the NBN, particularly in regional and rural areas like mine, the electorate of Richmond. Today we have seen yet another leaked document from nbn co. which has revealed that the Prime Minister's second-rate copper NBN is hopelessly delayed and over budget. This really reflects the concerns that I hear all the time from residents. They are very disappointed in this fact. The internal nbn co. documents today revealed that nbn co. has met than less than a third of its internal rollout targets for the government's second-rate copper NBN. These delays are due mostly to problems with connecting mains power to the large street-side copper cabinets. These problems are all of the Prime Minister's making. You will be aware, of course, that fibre to the premises, which was our policy, is a passive network and does not require mains power.

This really is just another example of the Prime Minister and this government's poor judgement. They should be quite embarrassed and ashamed about the situation with the NBN. The NBN was supposed to reach every home in three years. That was the promise. They have more than doubled the time frame. Today we see that the government will not even meet their revised target of 2020. Also, this project was supposed to cost $29.5 billion and it has nearly doubled to a cost of $56 billion. This government's second-rate NBN is a complete and utter failure.