Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak to the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015. I take this opportunity to report to the people of Indi some of the amazing achievements that have taken place over the last two years, to talk about the importance of a national approach to policy around telecommunications in rural and regional Australia and to talk about the future that is awaiting our young people in rural and regional Australia when we have the standard of telecommunications that we need.

As has been said in this parliament recently, telecommunications infrastructure is going to do away with the tyranny of distance that so many of us have experienced for so long. It is a story that began for me in my little dairy farm in the Indigo Valley where my mother managed the local telephone exchange, 33D, and the whole the community was linked by putting a little plug in the phone. Moving on to the 1990s, we first got access to the internet and became connected to the world wide web. And in 2013 I ran as an Independent with an absolute commitment to lobby, to work and to do everything in my power to make sure that the communities of Indi got the benefit of the NBN and mobile phone coverage.

I am delighted to report to the House today that that hard work, that whole-of-community approach, is really delivering dividends. We have a fixed line service from the NBN for over 52,000 premises and a fixed wireless service for over 14,000 premises—and, once the satellite is up and running, close to 4,000 premises will have access to it. I am absolutely delighted to say that today in Yackandandah the NBN is being turned on, in Barnawartha North it is up and running and in North Wangaratta and all the communities the NBN is working. To the people in Taggerty, it is fantastic. In Rennies Hill, Thornton South and to all those around 'The Paps', it is fantastic to be able to stand in this parliament and say that the NBN has arrived to our community. In Benalla, it is absolutely working and in Wangaratta and Wodonga—my major centre—the rollout is well and truly underway.

The great success of the NBN coming to our communities is linked to the issues we still have with mobile phone coverage, but I am pleased to say that we have made enormous headway there. Over 300 black spots were identified in 2014. Close to 200 of those have been addressed through the mobile phone black spot rollout program, one with 30 base stations. This was a huge achievement for the people of Indi. We received over one-third of allocated base stations right across Australia—only Durack and O'Connor, in Western Australia, did better. For all the competitive tendering, Indi came in third, which is a fantastic achievement for our community. Well done to everybody involved. We had a lot of success in getting the whole community to work together—businesses, local government, the community, the Victorian government and the authorities. We formed the Indi Telecommunications Action Group. We mapped where the black spots were. We worked with local government to get in-kind contributions. We worked with the telcos to talk about what needs to be done. We worked with individuals who had had accidents and no mobile coverage. We really raised our voice, and the result is there for all to see. We have done extraordinarily well, so thank you everybody for your hard work. I am now looking forward to round 2. We can make a difference for the remaining black spots, particularly in the high priority areas of the Mitta Valley, to the King Valley, to down around Kevington, Carboor and the Indigo Valley, where we have really poor service and we know the need.

When we have this conversation about telecommunications there is confusion between NBN broadband and mobile phone. What happens in my communities is that many, many people rely on mobile phones to get their broadband—through access to mobile phone towers. We put our little dongles in the system and we can then use the mobile phone tower to come to our computers to give us broadband. But it is a totally unsatisfactory system. It is expensive, it is unreliable, the data allowance gets used up really quickly and the capacity in the morning and in the night when it is busy makes it very, very hard to get the signal. When you have a lot of people come into the area, like we do with our festivals, the whole service gets clogged up and just does not work. So we are looking forward to the full rollout of the NBN and our ability to access broadband and, at the same time, the absolute need to get the mobile phones working much better.

If I could talk a little bit about mobile phones, I want to claim some great wins here for the people of Allans Flat. For the NBN, you got your petition going and we really did good work. We got the mobile phone tower at Mount Dorothy down near Yea. It was fantastic work by the community and by Telstra. Up at Dartmouth, with our landlines, what an achievement it was to have that public meeting, to get The Border Mail to cover the story, to get the telcos there and to actually get a commitment to fix those landlines that disappeared every time it rained. The people of upper Howqua Dale got their fixed lines fixed. For the people of Chiltern and the Indigo Valley, I know we are not totally there yet, but there was a huge impact after the fires. We got Telstra in and showed them how important those services were and what we needed to do. The communities around Lurg, Molyullah and Tatong have brought petitions to me. I have brought them to this place. We have been able to lobby and we have been able to get the commitment for better service.

While I have been in this job, we have also taken up the issue of VAST—the TV that comes out of Central Australia—and how inadequate it is for communities that are so close to highways and mainstream Melbourne not to get local TV. That is still on the agenda. We have made a lot of progress but we still have a way to go. While we are not there yet, I am absolutely optimistic that over the next three years, wherever you are in the electorate, you will be able to get the mobile phone coverage and the internet coverage you need.

I want to talk briefly about what this means, and I would like to bring to the attention of the House two letters I have received, from Anika and from her sister, Mia. Anika is 10 years old and she writes: 'I live 10 minutes away from Wodonga and recently my family and I have got access to NBN. Before we had NBN we were living on 15 GBs a month, and by day 2 of that month we had no GBs left. There were times when I was unable to complete my homework due to the fact that we had no GBs left. But since we've got NBN I have never had to stay in at lunchtime to finish homework, and I now have access to YouTube and heaps of other stuff that I was not able to access before we had NBN. Having NBN has helped me in my schoolwork. I can now do research. I can study things on the internet. I can do Mathletics and other programs that help me study and learn new things. So, thank you to Malcolm Turnbull and all the people that have supported NBN coming to the country.'

And I say thank you, Anika, and thank you, Mia, for your lovely letters. And I think that just absolutely encapsulates, from a 10-year-old—these digital natives—what an enormous difference it is going to make to their ability to live, work, run businesses, do the things that they need to do in rural Australia. However, we are not done yet. There is still a long way to go. And perhaps I can just talk a little bit about some of the things that we need to do. We need to make sure that everybody in Australia has access to broadband, that no consumers are worse off, that we have robust consumer protection and that we have a competitive and fair market. That is one of the areas that I particularly want to talk about today: the need in the future to ensure that in rural and regional Australia we have competition. Without competition we are never going to get the diversity of the products that we actually need to deliver what we want to do in our communities.

In my community we have Telstra—it is great to have you, Telstra—but we do not have access to Optus or Vodafone; we do not have the competition we need. And it is really, really important that we get the competition and access to the diversity of products right across Australia that give us the choice around our telecommunications provider and the types of products we need. One of the really important things we need to have in the future is to just be able to assume that wherever you are in rural and regional Australia you can actually get access to mobile phone coverage. In this regard I would like to talk about the regional telecommunications independent review that was tabled in the parliament before Christmas and the government response that was recently tabled. I have to say how really disappointed I have been by the government's response to this independent review. There is enormous opportunity for the government to actually look at universal service obligations that currently apply to landlines and say, 'Yep, landline was a great technology in the last century; the technology of the future is broadband and mobile phones, and we actually need to have universal service obligations apply to that.' This review had some really excellent recommendations about a consumer communications fund, which would enable this to be funded. The government has said it is going to go off to the Productivity Commission to get a report on it, but I am really saying to the government, 'Let's just grasp this; let's do what we need to do and make sure that wherever you are in Australia you can use your mobile phone.'

The other thing I would briefly like to talk about in the time I have left is what the opportunities will be in the future. I am on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture, and we are currently doing an inquiry into agricultural innovation. We have had over 100 submissions come in, and this afternoon we are having hearings. Almost without exception, every single submission has said that the major barrier to the uptake of innovation in agriculture is telecommunications—poor mobile phone coverage, poor access to broadband—and that what we actually need, assuming we are going to get that, are the products. It is about getting the telcos to come up with the products that enable us to do real-time research, connecting with our farms, with our research organisations, connecting with our international markets so that we have really close collaboration there.

The opportunities are enormous for us with telecommunications, and I am really looking forward to being part of my community, working with agriculture and working with industry as we develop the products that are going to take our agricultural business into the future. One of my constituents told me last week that telecommunications—mobile phones and particularly NBN—is a bit like how electricity was when it first came to our country areas. In my valley it came in 1958. When the lights were turned on, everyone thought that was an amazing thing: we had electricity online, and we got light. We had no idea that electricity would power computers, Thermomixes, sewing machines, washing machines and all the other amazing implements we now have because of electricity. This farmer said to me, 'It's going to be like that with broadband; the things we're going to be able to use broadband for have not even been imagined into existence yet.'

So, one of the things that I am really calling on the government to do in its agricultural and research and development agenda is to put creative and innovative use of digital technology way up the top of our research so that in our marketing and in our research in particular, as we develop the use of sensors, we can get in real time that step-up of research that we will need in the future. In bringing my comments to a close I would just like to acknowledge the work of both the government and the opposition for the terrific job they have done, really and truly, despite the politics, to get NBN, to get mobile phone coverage out into the country. I look forward to a whole-of-government approach under the next parliament as we fast-track and get the step-up we need so that particularly the agricultural businesses can do what they need to do.

I want to acknowledge the work of local councils particularly, for your co-contribution. I know sometimes it is hard fought, but it has made a huge difference to the ability to get those mobile phone towers where we need them in the rural areas. So, thank you very much. I absolutely acknowledge the work of the CEOs, the mayors and the councillors, and the ratepayers, in putting that money onto the table so that we can get the mobile phone coverage we need. I also want to say thankyou to the many, many communities and individuals in Indi. You have really come to the task. You have your community petitions organised, and the letters. You have come to parliament and you have really helped me identify where the black spots were both for mobile phones and for broadband and really been such a partner with me in bringing these issues to parliament. And I absolutely make my commitment that when I am re-elected and am back here as the federal member for Indi for my second term, mobile phone coverage and NBN coverage is way up there at the fore, so that by the time my nieces and my friends and Anika—who wrote to me, who is now 10—is 15 and ready to go into her higher years of school, every single student in Indi will have access to very fast broadband to do all the study they need from home as well as school.

So, I say to the people of Indi, thank you for the trust you have placed in me. This was a major election commitment of mine, to actually improve mobile phone coverage and NBN. I am very happy to report very successfully on the work we have done so far and am looking forward to coming back and finishing the job after the election.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi—and I hope the Prime Minister responded to 10-year-old Anneke in her electorate—particularly for the fact that she thanked the Prime Minister for having the NBN implemented and rolled out into parts of the electorate of Indi.

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015. It is probably topical at the moment because we saw the opposition, today, ask the Prime Minister and the minister for major infrastructure questions during question time, obviously in response to an article in TheSydney Morning Herald. I will go into those areas as well, but I would like to speak about the bill and the success of the NBN in my electorate of Swan now that the coalition Liberal-National government is running it.

As the minister has outlined, there are four measures in the bill. First, there are changes to the Telecommunications Act and the Competition and Consumer Act to clarify the regulation of facilities access. Second, there are changes to the standard access obligations to ensure that a service provider who controls or owns in-building cabling must provide access to that cabling as part of providing access to a declared service. This removes scope for restricting access to competitors and ensures end-users can get faster access to broadband and telephone services. Third, there are changes to the treatment of fixed principles in access determinations and special access undertakings to improve regulatory consistency and provide for more effective regulation. Fourth, there are changes to nbn co's line-of-business restrictions to ensure that nbn co can dispose of surplus assets to any person. Currently, it can only sell those assets to another carrier or service provider.

This is all an important part of the coalition government's ongoing task of fixing the NBN mess it inherited from Labor and delivering some broadband to the people of Australia. I note that the government is acting pragmatically, here, by only including in this amended bill the measures that the opposition and the Greens have committed to supporting. This is consistent with the government's pragmatic approach to the NBN rollout clean-up job left to us by the Labor Party after the last election.

We have heard a few speeches from Labor members and they are lining up to speak on this bill and complain about fibre to the node, which is different from their fibre to the home. They need to remember that under Labor's purist model virtually nothing was delivered in my state of Western Australia by the last election. Yet they come in here pushing for their failed model that would take decades to implement and cost vastly more. The people of Australia need upgrades rolled out now; they simply cannot be waiting for that model until 2025 or 2030.

I will give you some examples from my own electorate of Swan since the last election. Since Labor signed the NBN contracts we have seen, anecdotally, Telstra unwilling to upgrade any of the existing infrastructure servicing my electorate. We have had numerous complaints. People have rung us and said that Telstra will not attend to fix particular problems in their streets or in pits outside their houses or to upgrade lines that have broken down the street. The reason is that Labor left them absolutely no incentive to do so.

We have a situation where telecommunications infrastructure that might need improving or replacing is not being touched, because of the business contracts Labor signed. Imagine if we had to wait another 10 or 20 years for Labor's purist NBN. Suburbs across the country would be stuck with stagnating infrastructure, for the medium term—all to satisfy the contracts that were signed by the Labor Party. The Labor Party needs to get real and get on board, in regard to the mixed technology approach of the coalition, which is being delivered across the country and, in particular, in my electorate of Swan.

We had quite a few problems, pre-election, with the rollout of Labor's NBN. If we look at one example, the lead contractor in Western Australia, Syntheo, not only pulled out of the contracts they had with the Labor government but also pulled out of the state. Unfortunately, because of the way the contracts were written, they also left a lot of subcontractors unpaid, which has left a very bad taste in their mouths from dealing with Syntheo. I must admit, it all happened before the last election under the careful watch of Labor eyes. There were three separate investigations in WA at that time into claims that asbestos was mishandled in the rollout during the six years of Labor management, including in East Perth, Canning Vale and Victoria Park—which is in my electorate of Swan, not far from my office. There was also an incident in Mandurah, which I know the previous member for Swan and Canning, Don Randall, highlighted in his local papers as well.

Since the coalition came to government, there have been some changes—particularly in the electorate of Swan, as I discussed before. When we were elected, in 2013, there were only 34 brownfield premises connected across the whole of Perth. In the six years we had of the Labor government, talking about the NBN and what a fantastic job they were doing, there were only 34 brownfield premises connected across the whole of Perth. In my electorate, alone, there are 78,000 dwellings, so 34 out of 78,000 would not be an achievement. It probably would not even take up a street. For all of the bellowing and hollering from the Labor Party in the build-up to the last election about how well they were doing with the NBN, it certainly did not happen.

To go further, there were only 75 brownfield residences connected in the whole state of Western Australia. There were more announcements and photos by Labor MPs and candidates in WA than there were connections to brownfield sites! I can remember pictures of Gary Gray, the Labor candidate, local councillors and mayors all being lined up with this big red button in front of them and getting photos taken. Then, bang—they pressed the button for the NBN and the NBN was being rolled out. So when it actually came to election day we had 34 brownfield premises rolled out by Labor across just Perth—that is all they had.

But what a difference since the coalition government has come to power—particularly in my electorate of Swan. We can now look at the NBN map on the website. We can talk about a 'sea of blue', but the NBN rollout map for the electorate of Swan looks like a sea of purple, with purple being the colour representing NBN-completed areas where a service is available. In the electorate of Swan we now have 17 telecommunications areas that have been completed, and these span across areas in the City of South Perth, the town of Victoria Park and a segment of the City of Belmont. The actual suburbs with connections now available in my electorate are South Perth, part of Como, part of Manning, part of Salter Point, Burswood, Kensington, Lathlain, Carlisle Victoria Park, East Victoria Park, part of St James, Welshpool, part of Rivervale and part of Kewdale. I would say that is not a bad effort in the period of time that the coalition has been in government, considering what was actually connected by Labor prior to the last election.

There are also nine telecommunication areas in the electorate of Swan which have construction underway. The remaining parts of Manning and Salter Point are also being rolled out. And thanks to coalition's rapid-roll-out fibre-to-the-node plan we are now in build commence across a swathe of southern suburbs in the electorate that extends from Karawara in the west to Langford in the east. Construction began here in November in Karawara, Bentley, Waterford, Welshpool, part of St James, Wilson, Cannington, East Cannington, Queens Park, Beckenham and Langford.

We also have all the remaining parts of the electorate of Swan in the three-year roll-out plan. Looking at the maps provided by nbn co on its website I would suggest that Swan will probably be the first electorate in Western Australia to have NBN rolled out completely. Under the previous government there was no way known that was going to happen.

Areas that still need to be done are Como, where the construction for the remainder will commence in the second half of 2016, and construction is commencing in the second half of 2017 for Ferndale, Lynwood and Riverton. And in the first quarter of 2017 we will have Ascot, Belmont, Cloverdale, the remainder of Kewdale, Perth Airport, Redcliffe and the remainder of Rivervale, which has 14,300 possible sites. We will also have in the fourth quarter of 2016 High Wycombe, which is a new part of my electorate since the redistribution, with an approximate premises number of 20,300.

I also want to make special mention of the Ascot exchange, which services the majority of the City of Belmont. It has been let down by Labor in many ways, but it now actually has a time line to be rolled out and fixed under the government's NBN rollout. There are black spots in Cloverdale and Kewdale where no internet is possible at all. Again, they are now in the rollout phase, as mentioned on the nbn co website.

My constituents are often frustrated with the telcos, that tend to tell them there are connections available when there are not. If we look back at a bit of history, on 17 September 2007 the Labor member for Swan at that time, Kim Wilkie, wrote to the electorate on his Labor letterhead under the heading 'Labor's National Broadband Network will solve Ascot's broadband problems'. He said, 'Labor will invest up to $4.7 billion to establish the National Broadband Network in partnership with the private sector.' For that promise in 2007, we had not seen anything happen by 2013 and still nothing had happened on the Ascot exchange. But that has now actually been included in the rollout under the current government.

In 2008 we also saw the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council commission a detailed broadband black spot survey of the Ascot exchange area that showed the area was in much need of broadband. At that time the report was made as a submission to then Minister Conroy to push for the Ascot exchange to be prioritised by the NBN rollout. And, Mr Deputy Speaker, would you believe that the report was rated extremely highly by the minister's own department. The feedback to the EMRC and to the City of Belmont was that the report was rated extremely highly and that they should anticipate a rollout.

But in the rollout announcement Belmont and the Ascot exchange were left out by the Labor government, for political reasons. The deal signed by Labor with Telstra left no incentive for Telstra to improve infrastructure in the Ascot exchange, so after promising the world Labor left Ascot and the people of Belmont high and dry. The coalition will clean up this Labor mess and prioritise the Ascot exchange in the three-year rollout.

As I said, the NBN is far advanced in my electorate of Swan—I guess it is more advanced than nearly any other electorate in Western Australia. As I said, at the last election there were only 34 brownfield sites actually connected in the whole of Perth. It is something that the people of Perth and Western Australia should remember at the next election. We had a lot of rhetoric but no action by the previous government with their NBN rollout in Western Australia. It was a bit like the way they treated Western Australia with everything: the carbon tax and the mining tax were all anti-Western Australian legislation and taxes to stifle our economy and at the same time we were ignored by their NBN rollout.

The electorate of Swan is likely to be the first electorate in WA to be completed for the NBN, as I said. By the end of next year construction is scheduled to be underway in every suburb in the electorate of Swan. The coalition has turned the NBN around and it has a very good record to take to the next election whenever this may be held. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.