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

I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and seek leave to move government amendments (1) to (5), as circulated, together.

Leave granted.

I move government amendments (1) to (5), as circulated, together:

(1) Schedule 1, Parts 3, 4 and 5, page 8 (line 1) to page 15 (line 10), omit the Parts.

(2) Schedule 1, Division 1, page 17 (lines 2 to 11), omit the Division.

(3) Schedule 1, heading to Division 2, page 17 (line 12), omit the heading.

(4) Schedule 1, Division 3, page 18 (line 7) to page 20 (line 13), omit the Division.

(5) Schedule 1, Part 8, page 21 (line 1) to page 23 (line 2), omit the Part.

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

That was extraordinary. For those who missed it, what we just saw there was the junior minister at the table, the Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government, do a backflip worthy of Nadia Comaneci. In case you missed it, what he just did then was to gut this bill like a fish. He came into this parliament in December and tabled this bill and gave us a lecture about how important this legislation was, told us that it improved competition, that it improved efficiency, and now he has just ripped all of that out.

This bill has eight parts and the government has just ripped five of them out. How humiliating. In case you missed it, this is the first bill that has been introduced by this government on the NBN in 2½ years.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And it's been gutted like a fish.

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

It has just been gutted like a fish, but I am glad to see the government capitulate so heavily, so quickly, because this is a bad bill. As I said when I spoke in the second reading debate, what the government has tried to do here is to roll back important consumer and competition benefits that we delivered when we were in government: things like universal wholesale pricing, things that provide fairness for people who live in regional Australia. It means that people who live in the bush pay the same wholesale price for equivalent services as people who live in our big cities. The Liberal Party want to get rid of that, and the hapless National Party stood here ready to help them. The only reason that it is not happening is because the Labor Party have stood in their way. Let us be very clear: the only reason they are doing this is not because they have changed their mind—the minister just told us in summing up that he still thinks this is the right thing to do. The only reason they are doing it is because they know they cannot get it through the Senate. And if they win the next election and they get control of the Senate, then you bet this legislation will be back, and they will be onto this like Donkey Kong. They will be back into this, trying to pass the same legislation again.

In the meantime, we have more of this mess that they have made of the NBN. Remember, the cost of the NBN is now double what Malcolm Turnbull said it would be. He said he would build it for $29.5 billion; that has now blown out to up to $56 billion. The NBN is now going to take twice as long as Malcolm said it would to deliver it to everyone in Australia. He said everyone in Australia would have access to the NBN this year. That has now blown out to the end of the decade. And the cost to fix up the copper to make this dodgy second-rate NBN work has blown out—not by 100 per cent, not by 200 per cent, not by 500 per cent—by more than 1,000 per cent. It was originally forecast to cost about $55 million; it is now over $600 million. A leaked document last year showed that the Optus HFC network that they want to use for the NBN is not fit for purpose and will cost more than $700 million to fix so they can use that. Malcolm Turnbull said that it would be a modest cost to fix that. Now we know it has blown out to $700 million. The minister might have something to say about this, because he used to work at Optus. It begs the question: what did he know about this, and did he tell the now Prime Minister that it was not going to be a modest cost to fix the Optus HFC network? Why didn't he tell the Prime Minister that he was wrong—or did he?

I wonder whether the minister will tell us the truth?

Now, on top of this, this week we have seen two more damaging, leaked documents. The first, this document here, on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald this week, revealed that the cost of building their dodgy, second-rate NBN, the copper fibre to the node, is going up and that the rollout of their fibre to the node is way behind their internal targets. This report, which is only just over a week old, says that they were supposed to be at 94,000 by the end of that week and it is only at 24,000. Then today, this report here reveals that they have done a trial of a new type of fibre in Ballarat and Karingal, and that the cost of fibre is going down.

To add to this, they have this humiliating backdown by the junior minister today, gutting this bill. I can tell you, Deputy Speaker Mitchell, we are very happy to assist the government in gutting their bill. They should be embarrassed.

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

There are a number of things that the shadow minister said which do require some response. I remind the House that when the previous Labor government left office, after six years in office, 4½ years after they had first announced the NBN mark 2, they had managed to build up the network to such a tiny extent that only just over 300,000 Australian premises were in a position to connect to the network, should they have chosen to exercise that desire. The number now stands at 1.775 million and is increasing at an extremely rapid rate. Not only is the total number of premises that can be connected increasing rapidly, we are also seeing the number of actual connections increasing rapidly. The weekly rate is now well above 14,000 per week compared to Labor's, frankly, pathetic performance of connecting just 51,000 premises in three years. In other words, in less than four weeks, at the current run rate under this government, the NBN is connecting more people and more premises than was achieved in three years under the previous government.

The reality is that nbn co is led by an experienced and competent board, chaired by Ziggy Switkowski, one of the most experienced telecommunications executive in Australia, let alone in the world—a former chief executive of both Telstra and Optus. It is led by CEO Bill Morrow, who is highly experienced. Across the management team there is a collection of highly qualified and experienced telecommunications executives. You may say that this is surely a fairly obvious and basic thing to do. But, bizarrely, it was not done under the previous government and that is one clear reason why the rollout performance under the previous government was hopeless.

Under the overall direction of the Turnbull government and, previously, I might add, under the very competent direction of the member for Wentworth as Minister for Communications, what nbn co is doing now is calmly, pragmatically and systematically getting on with rolling out the network and putting in place all the fundamental and basic corporate disciplines of planning, monitoring performance against plan and achieving against targets. That is why nbn co has met its published targets now for six quarters in a row.

It continues to be the case on the published numbers of nbn co and on its internal reporting that fibre-to-the-node connections are materially less expensive than fibre-to-the-premises connections, at the same time as the company has indicated in its public reporting that customer perceptions of fibre to the node show no difference to customer perceptions of fibre to the premises. So the ultimate test is what customers make of the services, and we are seeing that customer perceptions are consistent with the strategy that the coalition took to the 2013 election and the strategy that is now being implemented by nbn co.

The opposition spokesman continues to attempt to try to whip up some version of events which is at odds with reality. What we are seeing is a difficult and ambitious project, a project which we have consistently said is not one we would have started. We would not have chosen this as a starting point, but it fell to the coalition, as it so often does, to clean up Labor's mess. What we are doing is getting on with nbn co managing this ambitious rollout in a systematic, methodical and businesslike fashion. The results are there. There is a lot more to do. It is a big and ambitious project, but under the Turnbull government it is going very much in the right direction.

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

What you just heard then was more of what the shadow minister pointed out: just extraordinary claims. We have the suggestion from the minister that they have had to come in and clean up nbn co. What an amazing job they have been doing! We have seen the cost double, slower rollout and people being left with a substandard service and denied an expectation that was fuelled by those opposite that they would deliver more, and they have not. You often hear the line from the coalition, which was repeated by the minister today, that after three years Labor did not do enough, that we did not roll out enough. The biggest infrastructure project in the nation's modern history and we did not do enough in three years—that from a mob who had 19 goes at fixing broadband over the 13 years of their government and they failed.

Mr Champion interjecting—

Nineteen times, member for Wakefield. And then they come in here and say that we did not do enough after three years. But those opposite tried for more than a decade with 19 plans and they constantly failed. What they are doing now is misleading the public about the quality of the rollout itself. They are saying that they have a different way of rolling this out. There is nothing different about relying on copper. There is nothing different about relying on HFC. There is nothing different about their approach when they have failed over 19 times.

There is a reason that there has been a $15 billion blowout in their project. The $15 billion blowout is the responsibility of both the then communications minister, now Prime Minister, and the person opposite, the shadow minister. Sorry; I mean the Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government and Assistant Cabinet Secretary—though we are working on making you a shadow minister. You had a role to play in it. You and the then communications minister were responsible for arguing that HFC was better. The member for Greenway has pointed out on a number of occasions that the ACCC said the HFC network was not fit for purpose.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Optus said it.

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

And Optus were saying that the HFC network was not fit for purpose. My own constituents tell me that the HFC network is not fit for purpose. They say, 'It is fantastic; it gives you great speeds at 4 am.' That is what they tell me. They tell me that Malcolm Turnbull's network provides you excellent download speeds if you get up at 4 am and no-one else is on that network. The HFC network cannot work when a lot of people use it, which is bizarre. You have this huge demand from people wanting a modern broadband network and they are told, 'You can get it, but if a lot of you use it it will be slow; so don't use it.' That is the compelling logic of the Turnbull government in terms of what they are putting forward.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Brilliant; it is a cunning plan.

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

It is a completely cunning plan, member for Wakefield.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Baldrick's broadband network.

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

It is. It is a broadband network absolutely designed by Blackadder's Baldrick, as the member for Wakefield rightly points out. And it may be the case that Baldrick is on the management team of nbn co. The minister pointed out the great management team. You have the CEO, Bill Morrow, who turns up to Senate estimates and is asked a series of questions about the network he is managing and probably 90 per cent of the questions that were raised with him were taken on notice. If this was a person who had command of the facts and was such a singularly impressive management representative, as the minister is suggesting, you would think he would be able to answer questions. But he cannot, and the reason he cannot is that he is not focused on the job of this rollout.

He is now in defensive mode trying to work out why there is leak after leak from his own organisation. nbn co's internal organisation are in revolt. They are in a rebellion. They do not believe in their heart of hearts that the network that is being foisted upon the Australian public by those opposite is one that will deliver, and that is why they are leaking. They do not have confidence in the CEO and they do not have confidence in Ziggy Switkowski. If Ziggy Switkowski is so great, why doesn't he spend more time talking about the NBN than telling us about the value of nuclear power? His Suncorp shareholders are equally concerned that it seems that he is not focused on the job that is required and is necessary. He always diverts his attention. That is why you have an organisation in revolt. That is why consumers are in revolt over this. And that is why we are being misled about this network rollout by those opposite—and they stand condemned for it.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we heard from the minister at the table, the Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government and Assistant Cabinet Secretary, was more of the spin and hypocrisy that has characterised this government's attitude from the get-go. You only have to look at the article in the Sydney Morning Herald of 19 February 2014 under the headline 'Coalition lied about true cost of NBN'. We had this person sitting at the table, the minister, and the then shadow communications minister telling us for years that the NBN under Labor was going to cost $90 billion—and they repeated this often. But we see in this article that when Minister Fletcher was asked:

… if the $90 billion estimate was then a 'political figure' floated to win votes, Mr Fletcher admitted that the figure was also wrong.

As the shadow minister said:

They just lied. They made that figure up.

I have a suggestion for the minister: maybe you should go back to Palmerston Hospital, dig a few more holes and fill them in with concrete—because that is what he is good at doing.

Only today we see yet another leak, and every member opposite spruiking an approach based on deception. And they should know about deception. Today in the Sydney Morning Herald we see the headline 'Trials point to cheaper fibre option'—oh, really! The article goes on to say about this new approach:

Its apparent success suggests that at the same time as costs of the federal government's fibre-to-the-node model have increased, the costs of the alternative fibre-to-the-premises option preferred by the pre4vious Labor government may be coming down.

Well, who would have thought that that would be the case!

But you do not have to just take it from me. I think we should take it from a few people those on the other side would probably tend to agree with—someone like the Deputy Prime Minister, who said:

Most people are in agreement that copper like is becoming redundant.

The Copper age was 5,300 years ago, and that is where copper belongs.

So we have the Deputy Prime Minister saying, in his own words, that the approach of this government and this minister at the table is wrong. But you do not just have to take it from him. I think it was the now very senior Senator Nash who actually coined the phrase 'fraudband' in 2007, when she bagged fibre-to-the-node technology, and said:

It's widely understood in the telecommunications industry that FTTN will not deliver improved broadband speeds to rural and regional areas.

But if you do not want to take it from Senator Nash, let us have a look at Senator Barry O'Sullivan. Senator Barry O'Sullivan was quoted in an article in The Age of November 2014 under the headline 'NBN snub for Western Queensland sparks rift in coalition'. Who thought there would be a rift in the coalition? The article read:

Sparks are flying within the coalition as fiery Nationals Senator Barry O'Sullivan takes aim at Federal Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull for subjecting rural communities to 'third world' services.

'It's a shame on our nation,' Senator O'Sullivan said.

And here is the good bit:

I'm embarrassed to be part of a party whose government would allow this to continue.

That was Senator Barry O'Sullivan—and he should be embarrassed.

In this debate we have heard all the spin and all the lines trotted out by the backbench opposite—everyone repeating the same stuff. In my contribution to this debate, I primarily focused on actual real world constituents—those that I share partly with the member for Chifley in Blacktown—who know they are getting ripped off, who know that their children are missing out and who know that their small businesses are missing out and cannot properly function because of the abject failure by this government. You only have to look at the evidence. Under this government we continue to slip in the universal broadband rankings. Australia is slipping under this government

There has been nothing but untruths and spin from this government. These constituents know that this Prime Minister has failed them. He promised 'faster, sooner, more affordable'—fail, fail, fail. His key promise to deliver minimum speeds by the end of this year did not even last the first year of this government. It did not even see out 2013. In fact, it was probably the first key promise this government broke. It was an abject failure, and all of their spin will not convince the people of Australia that they are getting a good deal under this government.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When it comes to the National Broadband Network this government has systematically misled the Australian people. Let us not forget that. You would think that a man who is credited with the grand title of having invented the internet would know something about the policy that he once had stewardship of. Before the last election they told the Australian people that they could roll the National Broadband Network out to all Australian households by this year. By this year it was going to be cheaper, it was going to be faster and it was going to be better.

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

Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Under standing order 150(b) debate is required to be relevant to the amendment before the House, and there are five amendments that are before the House. Nothing that the member has said so far is relevant to those amendments.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It relates directly to the bill and the amendment before it, and to the changes that are the bill, so I will allow it to continue.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the election the then shadow minister for communications, the member for Wentworth, said that he could deliver the National Broadband Network—albeit a second-rate National Broadband Network—for $41 billion. Within 18 months that $41 billion had blown out to $56 billion—a 37 per cent increase. So much for being cheaper. The cost has blown out by over 37 per cent.

As far as being faster goes, there are suburbs within my electorate that were wetting their lips at the prospect of having access to the National Broadband Network by Christmas. They are going to be very disappointed indeed, because now it appears that they may not even be connected by 2020. This is a region that is relying on the National Broadband Network to assist it in its economic transition from manufacturing to more advanced forms of economic activity. Then we get to being better. I would have expected the members who represent regional Australia to have something more to say in their party rooms or in the joint party rooms about this. In regional Australia, as with the rest of us, access to broadband—safe, reliable, affordable broadband—is absolutely critical if you are running a small home-based business, as an increased number of people in regional Australia are, or if you are educating your children or you yourself are engaged in education and you are relying on broadband for distance education. Connecting Indigenous communities through the National Broadband Network is also absolutely critical. I would have expected more people to be standing up here and having more to say about the importance of broadband in regional Australia, but it has been absolutely crickets from that side.

We could forgive them for their incompetence if it could be proved that they did not know better, but in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald it has become patently clear to everybody who has followed this debate that, for over 18 months, they did know better. For over 18 months they did know better, and they kept it a secret from the Australian people. Their own trials, commissioned by this government and this minister and this Prime Minister, have proven beyond doubt that Labor's model of connecting fibre to the household can be done more cheaply, or at least as cheaply, as the second-rate broadband rollout that they are currently engaged in. They are trying to convince the Australian people that they can do it cheaper, that they can do it faster, that they can do it better. But we know that the opposite is the truth. This was made patently obvious to all Australians when we picked up a copy of The Sydney Morning Herald today, when we learned that the trials commissioned by those opposite, themselves, are proving that the price to connect fibre to the household is coming down and that it will be at least half the price it was at the beginning of this rollout debate.

I could forgive those members of the Liberal Party who do not really know much about regional Australia for sticking their hands up for this bill, but for the National Party to stick their hands up and to vote for a bill that is going to increase prices for people in regional Australia is nothing more than a sin.

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

My first contribution to this debate on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015 is to offer an open invitation for the minister sitting at the table to visit my electorate. I will arrange a public meeting and invite the more than 100 people whose names I have here to come along and talk to the minister. Minister, what I have to say to you is that your NBN has caused absolute chaos in my electorate, as recently as last night. I might add that I have been receiving emails from constituents on a very, very regular basis in relation to this legislation. I think the backflip that the minister has taken in removing the amendments that are before the House today is quite humiliating. But I think it is better for there to be a backflip than for the minister to push ahead with the rollout of a NBN that is absolutely not working. I must share with the House one of the emails I recently received. It was from one of my constituents writing on behalf of his elderly parents, who live in a retirement village. What he wrote to me was that the retirement village—

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order: relevance. Under standing order 150, debate must be relevant to the clause or amendment before the House. We are debating amendments (1) through to (5). I invite the member to indicate which amendment she is speaking about. If she cannot do that then obviously she ought not to be continuing.

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

Further to the point of order, what the member is trying to outline here is the humiliating backflip by the junior minister in effectively gutting half of this legislation. The member is being relevant and the minister's point of order is not a valid point of order.

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

There are five amendments before the House this morning. The first of them deals with pilots and trials, access determinations and special access undertakings. The second deals with line of business restrictions. The third deals with line of business restrictions and authorised conduct. The fourth deals with authorised conduct. And the fifth deals with declared services and eligible services. I invite the member to indicate which one of those she is addressing. If she cannot do that then obviously she is not eligible to speak under the standing orders.

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

Further to the point of order, I appreciate the minister explaining in depth the breadth of his humiliating backflip by outlining every part of the bill that he is now deleting, but the point is the member is being relevant by talking about access to universal wholesale pricing.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the member to be relevant to the question.

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

I must say, I understand why the minister wants to stop me speaking. He does not want to hear about elderly people living without phones. He does not want to hear about people who signed up to his NBN and were promised fast speed broadband but are getting a slower speed broadband than they were receiving previously. And, yes, I can speak to the amendments and, yes, I can speak to the actual legislation as well in consideration in detail. Minister, I do not need to identify which amendment I am talking to. In consideration of detail, we are considering the legislation before the House in detail. The details that I am referring to relate to this minister's total failure, to his backflip, and to the fact he is not prepared to front up to people and tell the truth. He may have worked for a telecommunications company but he has never been out there and spoken to people.

What I am doing is generously inviting him to come to my electorate and meet my constituents. They would love to talk to him. Ring my office. I will get my office to ring your office after my contribution to this debate. We will organise a time so you can come along and explain to all those people in the Shortland electorate, elderly people without any phones, without any NBN and without any action from this government— (Time expired)

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was talking on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015 before and there was a deathly silence from the Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government sitting there. We very rarely see any animation from him. As the shadow minister said, those opposite have gutted this bill like a fish. They have stripped all the guts out of it, all the insides out of it.

The member for Higgins is here, replacing the colt from Kooyong—do not get me started. Here is another one playing fantasy frontbench late at night, working out when she is Prime Minister who is going to be a minister. Maybe the major projects minister will get the gig of Treasurer then and we will see some animation? At the moment it is only when you get onto telecommunications; that is the only time the mummy, the member for Bradfield, emerges from his crypt and wanders around. I have got to make sure I am talking about the amendments because those in the gallery would be fascinated to know all about the access to universal pricing and the like. They know they do not want to hear from the mummy again, the member for Bradfield, emerging from his crypt to the dispatch box to tell us all.

I have to confess I misled the House in my speech because I said that the Howard government had eight broadband plans. But you know what? It was 19. The member for Chifley tells me it was 19 plans over 11 years. What were they doing? Talk about being asleep at the wheel. Now we have their broadband bill after 2½ years. This is after the Prime Minister had been sent to destroy the National Broadband Network when he was the communications minister—that was his briefing note from the member for Warringah. Did you see them at the table last night at the anniversary of the Howard years? Instead of celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the Howard government, they could have been celebrating the 19 plans which did nothing for a national broadband network. There were some pretty uncomfortable camera shots there of them all sitting around the table.

I know, Deputy Speaker Goodenough, that you want me to speak about the amendments and I will be sure to because we do not want to remind the minister about how, when those opposite embarked on the copper plan, they started out with a costing of $29.5 billion and it went to $56 billion. They promised that everybody would have the National Broadband Network by 2016. Here we are in 2016, but it is now going to be 2020.

For all of those in the gallery, the ability to run their small business and the ability of their child to download their homework and interact with the education system on the internet are diminished by this government's preoccupation with destroying a great national project. Now we see their first bill come into this place. You would think they had enough time to think about it after 2½ years but then the minister got up here and presented five amendments, destroying the integrity of this bill and all of their work over the last 2½ years. He got up here and gave a speech that lasted, what?

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

There was no speech.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There was no speech? All right so there was no speech on these amendments and the only time we see any animation is when the minister lurches up here to pick on the poor old member for Shortland, who was just talking about her constituents and their need for broadband. How could that not relate to the amendments? Your time was consumed as well, Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough. I am reminded by my good friend the member for Throsby—I kept on thinking about Port Kembla and steel as I am due to go to Port Kembla, but that is another story—of The Sydney Morning Herald's headline: 'Trials point to cheaper fibre option.' And you are embarking on a copper network and this hotchpotch of pay-TV cables. The minister comes here, gives no speech and guts the bill, because we all know they will end up building fibre. That is what they will end up doing, because that is the future option. That is what Labor was going to do and what everybody in the public wants you to do. But this government were so bent on destroying Labor's legacy that they embarked on a plan that is costlier, inhibits internet speeds and will cost the taxpayer dearly. The minister expects us to take all this lying down. We will not. We will stand up for the National Broadband Network.

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

I take up the minister's invitation to address certain elements of the bill and the amendments. Through this debate we have constantly raised our concern about the prospect that universal wholesale pricing will be watered down and that this will lead to an exacerbation of what we are already concerned about—a digital divide, not just in the rollout of the network but in the pricing and people's ability to access broadband at the same price regardless of where they live in the country. That was the objective, the vision and the motivation: that we would not have the regions left behind either in terms of infrastructure or pricing. We have had these concerns and we have raised them through the debate in relation to the watering down of the safeguards and also the concern about pricing.

Through the course of the debate, too, we have raised the fact that the former CEO of nbn co has pointed out what he believes to be the cause of the $15 billion blow-out in this project, which is the emphasis on the HFC network and the fibre-to-the-node network that has been rolled out and the move away from what we had previously had in place. We have had some very serious concerns raised, as the member for Wakefield and the shadow minister for communications have raised, in relation to the article in The Sydney Morning Herald today, which indicated that there has been a trial. Pilots and trials are referred to in the amendments, but we have a pilot and trial here. This pilot and trial will use a new version of cabling that will allow fibre to the premises, yet we are not being told about it. Instead, we are having blow-outs on this project because of an alternative structuring of the project by the coalition that has had an emphasis on HFC, which, as I indicated earlier, constituents have said to me does not work when a lot of people are on the network. We have a fibre-to-the-node network that is nowhere near achieving the reach that the coalition promised, and yet they are having pilots and trials of new systems that we are not being told about.

Nbn co flatly refused to respond to the issue raised in the leaked document about this trial, so this is the opportunity for the minister to tell the Australian parliament and the Australian people, are you going to move to a system we have long advocated, which is fibre to the premises, based on the savings achieved by this? If you are not, you are saying that you will continue to adopt the philosophy and approach which has led to this blow-out of $15 billion so far. It is this type of blow-out that is forcing you to put into this bill a requirement to water down universal pricing, because in effect you want the regions to pay more for broadband services because this is how you are making up the losses. You are accounting for the blow-out by changing the pricing, making the regions pay for your bad mistakes. Yet we have a trial that shows, through your own documents—this document shows it—that you are able to roll out this network along the same lines, of fibre to the premises, as we said, and you can do it cheaper.

We are happy if a way has been found to do it cheaper, because the reality is that, with infrastructure projects of this magnitude, as they rollout and progress you find ways to do things more efficiently and more cheaply. If that has been found, good. What you should be doing is delivering to the people of Australia what they want: faster broadband delivered through fibre to the premises. It can be done in a way that avoids the blow-out of $15 billion, avoids the watering down of the universal access pricing that will allow you to get the same wholesale pricing whether you are in a city or a region and would deliver to them a service they want.

What we want to know is this: if you are undertaking pilots and trials—you have done it in two spots in Australia already, Ballarat being one of them—tell the Australian people. You have the chance to tell them how you are changing the delivery of the service to make it efficient and cheaper and to do it in a way that people want. I certainly invite the minister to respond, because it is clear that they have been hiding these types of trials from view and refusing to be transparent about them.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In considering the detail of the amendments and the bill before the House, it is important that we understand the history of the process that has led to this bill being before the House today. I take you back to the pre-election commitments that were made by the now Prime Minister, the then member for Wentworth, when he promised that he could deliver a national broadband network that his then leader did not believe in. Let us be very clear about this. His then leader did not believe in it because his then leader was committed to a style of politics that predates colour television. We are black, you are white; you are white, we are black; and unless it can be distilled down into three-word slogans—goodies and baddies; you are for us or against us—the then Leader of the Opposition—

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member must be relevant to an amendment before the House. He is not being relevant.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the member to be relevant.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If members of this place are to cast a vote on the five enumerated schedules and the amendments they contain, they must understand the context of how these amendments have come before the House and how they have changed in their journey from the party room to the Senate and then to the House. I rather suspect that there are members of the National Party and regional members of the Liberal Party who do not even understand the changes that have been made to this bill from when it left their caucus room—when they all stuck their hands in the air and said to bush consumers, 'I support higher prices for people living in regional and rural Australia.' That is what they voted for in their party room.

They do not understand the changes that have been made as that bill went from the party room to the Senate and then from the Senate to this House today. It is important. We can be confident that the member for Bradfield, the shadow minister, will have no part in educating those members on his side on the bill they are voting for. So it is incumbent on members of this side of the House to provide some context and education to those poor, hapless members of the National Party and regional Liberals about the impact this bill is going to have upon their constituents.

Let us look at those issues. When the bill was before the Senate it had provisions within it which were wedded to ensuring that if you were a broadband client in regional and rural Australia, if you were one of the thousands of Australians who made a submission to the Regional Telecommunications Review and expressed your concerns about the impact of the failure of the government to deliver decent broadband services in the bush—Mr Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the report of the Regional Telecommunications Review. It is a very good report. It highlights the importance of having ubiquitous broadband services in the bush. If you are a farm based business or a regional based small business, broadband allows you to have broadband to access the markets in the supply chains of the world. It is absolutely critical. I know this because I have businesses in my electorate today who are making decisions about whether they move out of where they are currently based to an area where they have access to broadband—because of the abject failures of this government. That is why I go to the history of this bill—because it is incumbent upon this side of the House to explain to those hapless Nationals what they have supported.

The Vertigan committee was given the herculean task of providing some credibility, some evidence, to the pre-election commitments of the government. And it was a task equivalent to the cleaning of the Aegean stables! They have attempted to provide a factual basis about how the government could, with a scrap of credibility, destroy the engineering architecture of the National Broadband Network as well as the business model which underpinned it. They have failed. That is the background to this bill.

I want to emphasise that if you are living in regional and rural Australia, if you are trying to educate your kids, if you are trying to run a small home based business or just trying to have the social interactions that many of us take for granted, access to affordable broadband is critical—and these guys are against it. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.