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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Since the last election, the cost of the Prime Minister's second-rate copper NBN has nearly doubled, from $29½ billion to $56 billion; the time to build the Prime Minister's second-rate copper NBN has more than doubled, from 2016 to 2020; and the cost of repairing the copper that makes the Prime Minister's second-rate copper NBN has blown out by more than 1,000 per cent. Given he could not deliver on the NBN and cannot deliver an economic plan, isn't it clear that all this Prime Minister is capable of delivering is chaos? (Time expired)

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

I will ask the to address this in a moment, but I just remind the honourable member, my former sparring partner, that, since the election, the number of premises that are serviced by the NBN has increased tenfold. By the end of this financial year the NBN will have upgraded and have services available to one in four premises in Australia. By June 2018 it will be three in four premises in Australia. The changes to the rollout will see the project finished six to eight years sooner and at around $30 billion less cost. The honourable member's project was a failure. The coalition, this government, has rescued it. I ask the honourable minister.

Mr Husic interjecting—

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

The member for Chifley is warned.

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

Thank you, Prime Minister. I am pleased to expand on these themes, because the shadow minister seems determined to keep banging his head against a brick wall, when the NBN is delivering. The NBN is delivering after what we saw under Labor was six years in which they managed to deliver a network which could serve barely 300,000 premises after six years. After 2½ years the Turnbull government has delivered an NBN where 1.775 million premises can be served, fibre to the node is being rolled out at the rate of 10,000 premises a week and, by the end of the year, it will rise to 25,000 premises a week.

You judge a company and its performance on the basis of the capability of the people who run it. A board chaired by Dr Ziggy Switkowski and a CEO, Bill Morrow, with global experience—none of that experience was present in nbn co when we came to government. You judge a company on its performance against its publicly stated targets. Is it doing what it tells the world it is going to do? The answer is, yes, it is. This company has met its targets for the last six quarters in a row—quarter after quarter of consistent performance, as compared to the chaotic mass we saw under Labor, when target after target repeatedly failed to be met. This is a company delivering. The NBN is getting rolled out. The Turnbull government is delivering for the people of Australia, because on this side we are about delivery. The other side are hopeless dreamers.