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

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

The Government's latest failures on the National Broadband Network.

I call upon those honourable 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—

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

It is no surprise that we see on the front pages today that in the minds of Australians they have completely lost confidence in the economic credentials of this Prime Minister and of this government—their ability to maintain our AAA credit rating, their ability to manage this economy. And it is instructive when it comes to the National Broadband Network. The constant, self-proclaiming as superior economic managers—so they said when it came to Australia's largest infrastructure project. Any semblance they may have had of any credibility has evaporated over the past week.

We had the Prime Minister telling this chamber just last month that the NBN was one of the biggest corporate turnarounds in Australian history. It turns out, Mr Speaker, that the only thing that is turned around is this government in doing a massive backflip on its commitment to limit its equity stake in the NBN to $29½ billion. What did they do on Friday? On Friday we bid a solemn farewell to what we on this side thought would be an ironclad promise—possibly the last promise standing from the government—on the NBN. The promise was that their equity contribution, due to run out on 31 December this year, would be absolutely capped and that there would be no more public funding going into this vehicle. And we believed this because they said it boldly, confidently and often. They even said it as recently as a few weeks ago. They have declared for the past three years that it would always be capped at $29½ billion. Surprise, surprise, Mr Speaker! Last Friday the government quietly announced a $19.5 billion loan to the NBN—$19.5 billion in taxpayers money to help complete the rollout of its second-rate, rubbish National Broadband Network.

We on this side honestly thought they would keep to this one promise because we heard it time and again. We had then Prime Minister Abbott in April 2013 announcing the coalition's policy on the NBN. 'What we are going to do is invest the money up to $29.5.' We had the then minister for communications, along with the minister here at the table, Mr Fletcher, on 13 May 2014 again commit:

The Government's investment is capped at $29.5 billion, with the balance of the project to be funded by the private sector.

We had Senator Cormann in Senate estimates in May last year, when asked if the government was leaving open the possibility of more government equity for the NBN, answer:

No. The equity cap that is in place is $29.5 billion, and our planning is for nbn to source the remaining funding requirements by raising debt from external markets … We believe and are confident that that will be able to be achieved.

We had the current minister for communications on 13 May this year say:

Well, the Commonwealth has indicated that our cap on equity contributions will be $29.5 billion. NBN will have to borrow money beyond that, but 29.5 billion is the Commonwealth cap.

We had the same in the NBN Corporate plan 2017.

It is expected that nbn will continue to be funded with Commonwealth equity up to $29.5 billion.

We had the strategic review in 2013:

Equity funding is capped at $29.5 billion.

Well, have a look at what we have got here. It was absolutely consistent until last Friday, when this government decided some $20 billion of taxpayers' money would go back into the NBN. And now this government is trying to find excuses for its latest broken promise. They put out a media statement saying that NBN's 2017 corporate plan 'assumes it will source private debt funding for the remaining $19.5 billion needed to complete the rollout'. And here is the big excuse:

A government loan on commercial terms represents the most cost effective way to raise the debt and secure funding to complete the rollout of this important national infrastructure project.

Well, it is no news—of course the government rate is always lower.

But it goes to the utter incompetence and inability of this government to manage this project. It was the last remaining promise that they had on the NBN that was still standing. We did not even think they were going to break it; they surprised even us. It was so unequivocal that these promises are still on the Prime Minister's website today. Go to the Prime Minister's website today. He has his coalition broadband policy FAQs. He says:

Public funding of $29.5 billion will be required for a coalition NBN.

Full stop. No equivocation whatsoever. It goes on:

Labor currently claims funding of $44.1 billion will be required to complete its NBN.

Well, even if that were the case, the people of Australia would be getting a real NBN for less money than what this government is doing. It goes on—this is really good, these are the words of the Prime Minister:

There is no free lunch. If capital is tied up in the NBN then it has to be paid for either by taxpayers or consumers or both. Less funding is needed under the Commonwealth plan.

But not less money; this government has just tipped $20 billion of taxpayer funding into it. But here is the special bit that I love that is still on the Prime Minister's website:

Our goal is to ensure that all Australians have very fast broadband by 2016 and that everybody can access at least 25 megabits per second.

Well, with 39 days to go, there are still seven million premises that are not connected. I have done the maths. We only need 180,000 premises a day to be connected! Why is this minister sitting here? He should be out there with the pliers in the node. Everyone needs to chip in.

I note that even the SBS commented in an article yesterday entitled 'NBN a growing worry for federal budget':

Concerns are mounting that Australia's broadband network will leave an anchor on the country's budget. The new $20 billion loan is an unanticipated commitment from the government. Malcolm Turnbull had previously indicated that the organisation would be able to operate without assistance from the government with only the initial funding.

Well, we now know that to be completely and ultimately wrong.

On that point, where is the minister in all of this? Unfortunately, the minister woke up yesterday to an editorial in The Australianof all places—stating:

The end-of-year awards season is almost here but there’s already an odds-on favourite for the title of the most ineffective politician in the land.

Take a bow Mitch Fifield, the Homer Simpson of the Turnbull government.

Well, I will not have Homer Simpson spoken about in those terms! Frankly, when you have a minister like this it is no surprise—and I know that my colleagues contributing to the debate will back this up with the real world experiences of our constituents—as we have seen in the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman's most recent figures that came out last week.

And look at the top 10 postcodes for NBN complaints; we hear about it time and time again in this chamber. We had the minister sitting at the table take a question from the member for Robertson on 12 September about the rollout of the NBN on the Central Coast. He said: 'The Turnbull government is delivering when it comes to the NBN.' What they are delivering on the Central Coast is amongst the top four postcodes for complaints. Toukley, Wyong, Central Coast, Gosford—all of these areas are recording the highest numbers of complaints. And where, overall, are the highest numbers of complaints? In rural and regional areas. They are being utterly let down by this government. We have the front page from the News Mail in Bundaberg: 'Bundy tops the nation for NBN complaints'. Bundaberg tops the nation! What is the coincidence that is going on here? Amazingly, these are predominantly areas where fibre-to-the-node copper based technology has been rolled out.

If you wanted any example, any evidence, of why this government is so hopeless at delivering for the consumers of Australia, here it is in the TIO's own figures. Complaints have gone up by something like 150 per cent in some cases for faults and for consumers failing to get the product that they paid for. So we can see quite clearly how much this government has let down the people of Australia and how hopeless it has been in terms of the economic management of the project. On top of all that, we have recently seen Australia ranked 23rd out of 26 countries when it comes to broadband satisfaction. This government has utterly failed the people of Australia on every single count with the NBN. Sooner, faster, more affordable? It has been fail, fail, fail from this government every step of the way.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, here we go again—yet again we have the shadow minister maintaining the tradition of being a Labor shadow minister for communications and continuing to assert, in the face of the gathering evidence, that the rollout is going badly. When the light of broadband availability is spreading across the land, it falls to the Labor shadow minister to look for gloom.

Let's remind ourselves of Labor's history of trying to claim in the parliament something that was quite at odds with the reality. Their preferred tool for doing that is a matter of public importance debate. On 17 September 2015, the member for Blaxland, who was then the shadow minister, brought forward the topic: 'The Prime Minister's mismanagement of the National Broadband Network'. At that point, 1,291,635 Australians were able to connect. He was at it again on 21 October 2015, with 'the Prime Minister's second-rate NBN'. By that time, the number of Australians who were able to connect had risen to 1,374,408.

By 10 February this year he tried again, with 'the Prime Minister is failing Australians with his second-rate NBN'. Of course, the numbers continued to show an inexorable rise in the number of people who could be connected. At that point it was 1,719,122. On 3 May—remarkably, on budget day—Labor chose to raise the NBN as their brilliant wheeze as a topic for the matter of public importance debate. Then it was 'the government's failure to deliver on the NBN for Australians' when, by that time, the numbers had risen to 2,428,606. So we see that, as Labor continues to insistently deny reality, what is happening is that the numbers of people who can connect are rising steadily, strongly and inexorably due to the fact that we have a competent government that is competently delivering the rollout of this complex infrastructure project.

The member of Blaxland was delighted, I am sure, to finally be relieved of this smelly dead cat of a portfolio and to hand it to the member for Greenway. And she has been continuing to try to assert in some Stalinist fashion the alternative reality, which is at odds with the truth and at odds with what is actually happening. By 11 October the number of premises that could connect had risen to 3,207,727. So that inexorable, relentless, continuing rise in the number of people who can get the National Broadband Network has been continuing even while the member opposite, the shadow minister, has been trying desperately to assert that reality is at odds with what the numbers, what the reality, what the empirical observations, tell us. And today she is at it again, untroubled by the empirical evidence. She does not mind. She is not interested in what the numbers say; she is going to turn a blind eye to that and she is going to put forward the proposition of 'the government's latest failures on the NBN', while the number of premises that can connect now stands at 3,426,350.

We can only conclude that there is some kind of Labor shadow communication minister version of the prayer which is the opposite of the prayer of St Francis of Assisi: Where there is light, let me look for darkness; where there is progress, let me assert problems; where there is a network being rolled out with the numbers steadily and relentlessly increasing, let me in an increasingly desperate and, frankly, somewhat unhinged way, assert the existence of an alternative reality; let me clutch at the day-to-day vagaries of a massive project and claim that they show—to quote from her media release—'the government is in absolute disarray'. The position is absolutely the opposite of that.

We are seeing a steady, relentless, continuing increase in the number of people who can connect. Those numbers are reported on the company's website every week. The company has repeatedly said that it is on track, and its performance is backing up what it is saying: that, by the end of June 2017, half of all premises, 5.4 million, will be able to access the NBN, and it will be three-quarters of all premises in Australia by the end of June 2018. That builds on a steady increase in the number of premises—by the end of 2014, 604,000; by the middle of 2015, 1,166,000; by the middle of 2016, 2,893,000—and now, as I have recently informed the House, 3,426,350 premises are now able to access the National Broadband Network.

The claims of the Labor Party would be absurd even if they started with a blank slate, but we know they do not. The Labor Party, when it comes to the National Broadband Network, starts with a record of delivery that is one of the great displays of policy and execution incompetence in the history of the Commonwealth. The rank ineptitude of the other side of this House when it comes to the question of the National Broadband Network will still be studied in case studies in schools of business and government in 2030 or 50 years' time.

Let us not forget that what Labor proposed in the 2007 election was that there was going to be a national broadband network; it was going to be a 12 megabit per second network; it was going to deliver fibre to the node to 98 per cent of premises; and it was going to cost $4.7 billion and the private sector was going to pay for half of it. None of that got delivered. In a display of rank ineptitude, they managed to completely fail to hold a competitive selection process and, in 2009, they were forced to admit that they could not do it.

So then we had a new plan: the $43 billion fibre-to-the-premises model which was announced in a lather of excitement, and of course we were told that the private sector was still going to invest—'Don't worry; the private sector is still going to invest in the National Broadband Network.' And guess what? That did not happen. The implementation study, which was dropped out in the dead of night in May 2010, disclosed that the private sector advisers to the then Labor government, KPMG and McKinsey, said: 'The private sector is not going to touch this with barge pole.' And guess what? It turned out to be 100 per cent government funded.

And now it turns out that these geniuses in corporate finance presume to come in and lecture to this government about the financing structure of the National Broadband Network. What an extraordinary proposition after their rank display of incompetence and ineptitude over the six years in which they were in government. Let us not forget that then Prime Minister Rudd urged Australian mums and dads to invest through Australian infrastructure bonds. That did not happen either—and we should be very relieved that it did not, because that would have been a spectacularly poor piece of financial advice.

So this Labor opposition's track record when it comes to corporate finance, when it comes to the finance structure underpinning the National Broadband Network, is a track record that any rational person would be acutely embarrassed by, and you certainly would not be returning to the topic in some Pavlovian fashion week after week, month after month, as if you wanted to remind the Australian people of the gross display of incompetence and lack of credibility on this topic that manifests when it comes to the Labor Party and the National Broadband Network.

And now the shadow minister is in a lather of indignation, because we have said that, in addition to the cap of $29.5 billion on equity funding from the taxpayer into the National Broadband Network, there will be debt finance. We have consistently said that there will be debt finance. The company said just last week that it was very encouraged by the indicative credit ratings it had received from the credit agencies. We are confident, as the Minister for Finance said, that we could have raised private sector debt, but what we have chosen to do at this stage is raise the debt from the government. Why? Because it is cheaper. It is a very simple reason: it saves money for taxpayers. This is a financing strategy which saves money for taxpayers. This debt will be subsumed by the private sector within a few years. This is a rational, cost-effective strategy to maximise the best outcome when it comes to the National Broadband Network.

The proposition that the Labor Party, who delivered such a spectacularly inept display and skulked out of government with barely 50,000 people connected to the National Broadband Network, should presume to lecture this government—the proposition that they should be sufficiently irrational as even to raise this topic—is frankly quite extraordinary. You have a clear contrast: on this side of the House you have a government who are systematically and steadily rolling out the National Broadband Network, this complex project which we inherited in absolute disarray; on the other side of the House you have a party who have a hopeless track record of delivery. When it comes to NBN, they have a lot to be ashamed of.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me say from the start that I am a huge fan of high-speed broadband. Until some months ago I would probably have said I am a huge fan of the NBN. It has the capacity to be a transforming technology for the economy in my seat of Macquarie. Certainly where we have fibre to the premises we are seeing some great stories, but in the last few months the experiences of the rollout of NBN in my electorate make me despair for what might have been.

I am thrilled that the government has failed to achieve its target of delivering NBN by the end of 2016 because it gives me some hope that the massive areas in my electorate that are not getting this second-rate fibre-to-the-node system might, sometime in the future, be entitled to a decent rollout. I hope that the other side sees our sense that fibre to the premises is the way to go. However, we are getting fibre to the node up in the Blue Mountains. Last week, around 200 people joined me for a forum in Wentworth Falls. I made it clear to that audience that I did not think fibre to the node was really going to achieve the things we wanted; however, I did say we needed to try to make the best of a bad bunch. That is what we tried to do. To be fair, not everybody at the forum had had a bad experience with connecting or running NBN, but they were the minority. People do not come out on a Thursday night to talk about an issue like NBN unless they are really driven. I have to tell you, a lot of people in that room were driven. We were overflowing. We had to put extra seats out. I have never seen people as angry about an issue.

I want to acknowledge that in that room I managed to get not just angry people but NBN representatives. I also had Telstra representatives in the room. My office finds that one of the biggest issues is that NBN blames a service provider, usually Telstra, and Telstra blames NBN. I think having them both in the room was a good start. In my view, however, the test of an organisation, and of a government, is not how you deal with an issue when it is going well but how you deal with an issue when it is not going well. I have to say, I am unimpressed with NBN Co's response to many of my constituents. I did not really know why they would respond that way until I heard the member for Bradfield, who seems to have no interest in the challenges that people are having, the hours they are spending on the phone trying to get solutions. Now I can see that this is a top-down approach.

Let me talk a little bit about the frustration that my community is feeling. In one street there are houses where one person has been connected and their neighbour has not. No-one can really work out what the problem is. North Katoomba seems simply to have been plonked in the too-hard basket. People have had weeks without a phone or connection in the switchover period. And, again, no-one can really explain why. Slow speeds are an ongoing issue. Bob Paton from Leura suffered this and, again, no-one really seems to be able to identify if it is the NBN or the RSP.

Can I tell you about dropouts? Michelle McKenzie, who works for a financial services firm, told me that getting connected took three days. They lost hours and hours; their business pretty much had to grind to a halt. By day 3 of the saga, she was getting frustrated—and here is a bit of insight into how well our community is being serviced. In one conversation, the NBN guy—and I am quoting Michelle—'suggested I walk to the nearest Optus shop and grab a dongle so that I could have internet connection.' Here is her response: 'Walk to the nearest Optus shop and grab a dongle? We are in Katoomba and the nearest Optus shop is 50 kilometres away in Penrith.' She does confess that was the moment she lost her temper. And I think that is what this government does not appreciate, that it is pushing people who are having a bad customer experience, a bad technical experience, and no sense that anyone actually cares about their problems. This is just one of the examples that we are seeing.

We also have issues around the wireless rollout and Sky Muster. One of the things I think this government has done is redefine community consultation. I think they believe it means you make a decision and then you tell the community. That is the way our community is being treated—there is no respect. It is not good enough and, like everything this government touches, they know how to take a visionary idea and they know how to destroy it.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Rural Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaking about the NBN is such a pleasure because we have just heard a diatribe about people who have had problems. When you have a system that has been beset with poor planning and on-the-back-of-a-coaster concepts from the previous government, I find it grossly hypocritical that they are now complaining about a system that they delivered to the nation. People in glass houses should not throw stones. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Just look at the record of what was achieved in the six years of the previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. It started off, as I said, on the back of a coaster on a plane, and it was going to be $4.4 billion. Six years and more than $6 billion later, less than one per cent of their projected rollout happened, and contractors and, in fact, whole states where the rollout was meant to be happening going broke. There were rip-offs of contractors and subcontractors. There was a whole board with very few people with communication skills, and a lot of political appointments rather than technocrats. There were pop-up contractors with whole states that had absolutely nothing to show for six years of work. They had to change their own model to fibre to the premise. We changed that model because things changed—$4,400 per connection for fibre to the premise, whereas fibre to the node is $2,800.

A lot of the big contractors in the US and Europe are now using—surprise, surprise!—fibre to the node with VDSL2 and vectoring, delivering speeds of the magical 100 megabytes per second, which in your previous model, you were going to spend almost twice as much delivering. It was going to be $30 billion more and take six to eight years longer.

The member for Greenway criticised the change in financing, but it is actually not a change. There is $29½ billion of government equity in it which was always the plan, and there is another $20 billion from debt financing. And, as the member for Bradfield just pointed out, equity is different from debt financing. Debt means the NBN will be paying interest and repaying the capital over time. If any business can get cheaper capital—cheaper borrowing costs—obviously it is a good idea, and the government can get capital at a lot cheaper rate than going out to the markets. You only have to look at what has been delivered now, in the four years of the coalition running out the NBN—which we inherited from the other side. We have increased exponentially the number of people that can now be attached to the NBN. In fact, 3.4 million premises can now be connected. At the end of the Labor government in 2013, there were of 51,000 people across the country versus 3.4 million now. You only have to look in my electorate of Lyne. In September 2013, there were just over 1,000 people with an active connection. Now, it is available to 35,216 premises. Wireless rollout across the Lyne electorate is now available to 12,695—it was less a thousand back in 2013—and there are 29,000 more under construction just in my electorate alone. The old, interim satellite, that underpowered and overloaded system that was so frustrating, was available to 500 people—and they were all pulling out their hair. Now, Sky Muster has 7,000 people in the Lyne electorate who are eligible—50,000 paying customers in 2013 versus 1½ million now. You only have to look at the record. In rural and regional Australia, for instance, there has been a massive spend on internet capability—$2.6 billion in rural and regional Australia on the fixed wireless network, $2 billion on the satellite network. That means hundreds of people in remote Australia are now hooking up with 50 gigabytes available for education purposes, speeds of 25 megabytes per second for download and five megabytes up— (Time expired)

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Greenway for raising this matter of public importance, because the electorate of Wills is almost a microcosm of Australia and the staggering failures of this government in rolling out the NBN are so pronounced in Wills and have affected so many people. The member for Lyne said that the NBN started out on the back of a coaster on a plane. Well, this government's online policy framework would not take up a drink coaster. Labor comes up with the ideas and this government destroys them. When I say my electorate of Wills is a microcosm of Australia, in the southern part of Wills residents enjoy the economic, social, educational and entertainment benefits of world-class, fibre-to-the-premises connectivity that was rolled out under the previous Labor government. In fact, I am lucky to be one of those residents. I live in the suburb of Brunswick, which had fibre to the premises, fibre to the home, rolled out before the coalition took government. Just north of my street, however, residents are cursed with Malcolm's mess, the Prime Minister's mess—a shoddy, third-rate internet in an age when businesses and residents are increasingly reliant on internet connectivity—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I remind the member for Wills to refer to members by their correct title. This will be the last warning I give on that.

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister's mess, and let us be very clear about this: a broadband connection in 2016 is not merely a luxury item; it is an essential utility. I rose in this place on 12 October to speak about how shocked and disappointed I was to discover that the scheduled rollout of the NBN to the suburbs of Pascoe Vale, Glenroy, Fawkner, Gowanbrae, Hadfield and Coburg was sneakily cancelled by this government. That is right, it just quietly disappeared from the NBN website, but many residents noticed. Even though they might be on ADSL, they actually go and look at that website because they are anticipating a rollout into their suburbs. I regularly hear complaints from constituents in those northern suburbs of Melbourne about the quality of their internet connection being so poor. That same week that my constituents were reeling from the disappointment of their long-awaited upgrade being pulled from under them, the Prime Minister proclaimed on 11 October that the coalition's NBN was 'one of the great corporate turnarounds in Australia's history'. I am astounded by that comment, especially in light of what was occurring in my electorate that very same week. But the Prime Minister was right: it did turn around from a world-class, fibre-to-the-premises NBN delivered by a Labor government to the Prime Minister's mess.

The debacle in Wills is not unique. There is a litany of government failures on the NBN since they have taken control. The coalition promised Australia that their version of the NBN would cost $29.5 billion. Apart from the technological inferiority of the fibre-to-the-kerb or the fibre-to-the-node solution that they have presented to Australians, it is now apparent that the cost of their already technologically crippled NBN has blown out to at least $54 billion from $29.5 billion.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has also reported that complaints about faults on NBN services have jumped by 147 per cent under the coalition's stewardship of the NBN. Complaints about slow internet speeds have soared by 48 per cent. For a service which is supposed to improve internet service for Australians, this is a catastrophic failure by the government.

And I am sure we all remember Mr Turnbull's promise to provide every Australian household with access to the NBN by the end of 2016. Well, he has 39 days left. The Prime Minister has 39 days left to meet this promise—39 days, and almost eight million Australian households are still waiting for any upgrade to their homes and the fibre to their homes. Many of those households and businesses are in my electorate of Wills, and I know from many of the speakers we have heard today that this is replicated right across Australia.

So many people are frustrated, angry and upset that they are being dudded. So I ask: what does the Prime Minister have to say to all these people? What does he have to say to all the people of Wills and all the people across Australia? What has the Prime Minister to say about dudding them with his fizzer of a policy?

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a real pleasure today to be able to talk on this matter of public importance. I had the pleasure last week of addressing an MPI from the shadow minister for agriculture, and we have an MPI today from the shadow minister for communications. Surely they were two most complete policy failures when they were in government.

I want to bring a regional perspective to this issue today. We have heard about people in the suburbs who apparently have ADSL2 and have a reasonable internet connection, but of course people living in regional areas do not have that. I live that experience. I rely on mobile data for my internet connection at my house. It is intermittent. It is very poor. I am very excited about the satellite service, which I will come to in a moment.

But let us talk about Labor's record. They have been very critical of the government here today, but let us have a look at what Labor delivered, starting back when then Prime Minister Rudd and then Minister Conroy concocted the NBN on the back of a beer coaster, I believe, on an aeroplane on the way to Darwin. Remember? It was going to cost $4 billion—$4.4 billion was the original estimate. We have obviously come a long way from there. There have been a lot of developments in this space.

When I became a member of parliament in September 2013, the number of people that had access to the NBN was just slightly over 50,000. That was what the Labor government had achieved in this space in that time. In my electorate of O'Connor—I might be wrong; I may well be wrong, and I will come and correct the record if I am—there was not one person connected to the NBN, although I will make the point that the Interim Satellite Service was available to some people in my electorate.

And what a disaster that was. One of my first experiences as a member of parliament was being deluged with complaints about the poor service that people were receiving on the Interim Satellite Service. It was slower than dial-up, expensive and unreliable, and why was that? It was because the previous government had purchased a certain amount of capacity on the interim satellite. That capacity was swamped in no time flat—you are nodding your head, Deputy Speaker Coulton; you understand this very well—and the speed of that service slowed down to less than dial-up. People like me, who would have liked to have had access to a satellite service, could not join that satellite service. It was oversubscribed, so we did not have access to that service.

Of course, what had happened in the meantime is that, once the previous government had announced the NBN plan, not one cent of private capital had been invested in that space. There was not one private operator that was out there offering an alternative service.

Let us have a look at the government's record. We have heard some criticism of the government today, but let us have a look at what we have achieved since September 2013, mainly via the then Minister for Communications, Malcolm Turnbull, now the Prime Minister. He has a fantastic record in business and understands communications and business probably better than anybody else in this place. In the three years since we took government, we have passed 3.5 million homes. Three point five million homes are now in a position to connect to the NBN. By 30 June 2017, in just over six months' time, there will be 5.4 million homes that will be able to connect to the NBN.

We have heard a lot of criticism about the speed—that not everyone is getting 100 megabits per second. Well, let us have a look at what people who are joining the service at the moment are actually choosing to get. Only one in five people are opting for a speed greater than 25 megabits per second—only one in five. The opposition are proposing the fibre-to-the-premises model, at an additional cost of $2,200 per connection, so that everybody gets 100 megabits per second. But not everyone wants 100 megabits per second; that is borne out by the commercial reality that people are quite happy with up to 25 megabits per second. But, for 11 million homes, at an extra $2,200 per home, that is $22 billion in extra expenditure to deliver that service, which most people do not actually want. Most people do not actually want it.

But one of the major successes of the government in my electorate has been, of course, the launch of the satellite, which is providing a fantastic service to the 2,200 customers across my electorate that will no doubt choose to take up that service.

Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All I can say about the NBN, one of my favourite topics, is that, under this coalition government, it is nothing but a national travesty. It is completely a national travesty. You should come to Tasmania and see what has happened in that state. Would you buy something that was of an inferior quality but would cost more and probably take longer to be delivered? I mean, seriously! This is what you are proposing, or what you have been putting in place, under your fibre-to-the-node plan.

As a Tasmanian, I was very proud when, in about 2009, Tasmania was to be the first state to roll out full fibre-to-the-premises NBN. Stage 1 was completed a year after its construction, and that was the backbone. That was a huge undertaking for Tasmania, to construct a backbone and connect to people. And they were connected a year after that construction commenced. We now are in stage 3, and we have cities in my electorate, Burnie and Devonport, that have not been connected to fibre to the node—other than a tiny little section of my city that has just got a couple of nodes built. That is absolutely ridiculous; that is all I can say. Businesses and industry in those cities tell me all the time that they are absolutely gutted by this government—that, when you are talking about jobs and growth, there is not the infrastructure there to support them. They have been dudded by the then minister, who decided, 'We'll change this to fibre to the node,' a technology that is not future-proof and will not meet the needs of Australians.

But, apart from that, there is the inequity of this rollout in my electorate. You have got some sections that, under Labor's plan, have been connected with full fibre to the premises, which is fantastic, and in the major population centres they will get fibre to the node. So you have just got to look at the inequity. You talk about a government that supports regions. Sorry—you are not supporting regional Tasmania at all.

But the most ridiculous thing is that the coalition went to the 2013 election with the document that talked about the coalition's economic growth plan for Tasmania; this was in August 2013. It said that the rollout of the NBN under the coalition would be complete in Tasmania by the end of 2015! Now we are not looking for Tasmania to be connected to the NBN until about 2018—perhaps; question mark. Is that when it is going to be completed? Who would know!

And then you have got to look at the west coast of Tasmania. Under Labor, they were going to get full fibre to the premises, and Strahan was going to get fixed wireless. Then the then-minister came in. First of all he said, 'We'll honour all contracts,' before the election, and then he said, 'No; now you're getting fibre to the node.' But then, alas, they changed it and put the west coast of Tasmania on a satellite. The satellite is great for little hamlets. But you have got 4,000 homes on the west coast of Tasmania, which has high rainfall and mountainous terrain. The community there knew it was not going to work.

They then went to the local Liberal member for Braddon at the time, absolutely disgusted with what was going to happen for them, and he said, 'This represents a great opportunity, and you should instead stop pining for a fibre-to-the-premises.' He is gone. He is saying, 'Sign up. Find out what it's like, and if it's still a problem let's talk about it.' I went to a forum with all the community with the then shadow minister, the member for Blaxland and, I tell you what, I am surprised that that federal member got out of there alive. Then they did another backflip and said, 'Now we're going to put you on fibre-to-the-node,' which is great for them as it is an improvement from the satellite. One of the state members of parliament for the Braddon area says, 'You're now getting what you deserve.'

It is a second-rate system for a population that is experiencing some really difficult and challenging economic hardships with mine closure and an economy that is depressed. They need this type of technology now and into the future to diversify and grow jobs so that they can grow their local economy. All that this government has done is let the people of regional Tasmania down, and it should be condemned for that.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I heard an interesting word in the previous speaker's presentation, and it was the word 'deserve'. It was a word that I could use quite strongly. Labor clearly believed when it was in government that WA did not deserve any NBN. Labor left WA completely stranded in 2013, only managing to connect 109 existing homes during four years in charge of the NBN. That is all WA deserved, according to the Labor government.

Like everything else that we inherited, the NBN project was in such a shocking mess in 2013 that the construction contractors in Western Australia refused to continue building it. That is how much of a mess the Labor government left. In 2013 the company contracted to build the NBN in WA and South Australia actually handed back 47 sites in Western Australia which Labor had deceptively listed as 'under construction'. Labor has a very long record of broken promises on the NBN, and their really empty criticisms ignore the amazing progress the coalition has made in getting this failing project back on track. When contractors were handing back and stopping work, I would not call that success. Today the NBN network covers more than 343,000 WA addresses. What did we have back when Labor was in government? It was 109. Now we have 343,000 WA addresses, and there are over 137,000 residences and businesses connected and enjoying the benefits of better broadband.

In my electorate two weeks ago we were actually able to celebrate the switching on of the final NBN node in central Bunbury. This was not even on Labor's map; it was on a map for perhaps 10 years hence or whenever. The Bunbury town centre can now service over 2,200 premises with fibre-to-the-node and joins around 24,000 premises in the greater Bunbury area that now have the same access. This has employed local people, and when I get out on the ground and talk to the contractors there are so many local people involved.

This was a seriously underserviced area that was totally ignored by the Labor government. We were not even on their maps, and the South West is now very well advanced with the NBN rollout. This is such an innovative and creative hub, and it has been absolutely prioritised by the coalition government. I think it is great to see the South West embracing the technology. To support this, a group combining Regional Development Australia South West, Business South West, the South West Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and the South West Development Commission have appointed an NBN adviser for the region. Mike Hendry has been tasked with arming South West people and businesses with the very best information about their NBN options and opportunities so that they can actually make the right decisions for them, their families and their businesses.

With Labor's 'pie in the sky' proposal, we in the South West were looking at construction at least a decade away. Instead, my region today is seeing towers go up and boxes being built on street corners. Of the 62,000 or so premises on the NBN rollout plan, there are currently some 35,000 premises in Forrest that have access to the NBN. This is great news in my part of the world. After knowing that we were at least 10 years away under a Labor government, we now have access to the NBN.

Of course, we all know that Labor was overbuilding in areas where there was already significant NBN access and was certainly not prioritising underserviced rural and regional areas. Now businesses and individuals can come along to a small business gathering and learn what is the right access for their business and what they need, and that is what they are actually accessing. These one-to-one gatherings are really useful for people. I am particularly proud that the NBN is in the South West.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad that the issue of small business was raised, because that is certainly something I would like to come back to. It is extraordinary that we have a Prime Minister who talks a lot about ours being an agile, innovative economy, but the one thing he has never properly invested in is a first-rate fibre-to-the-premises NBN, the kind of NBN that this nation actually needs. Members opposite have alluded to some alleged favouritism, where NBN was allegedly being built in areas that were already overserviced or well serviced perhaps. I would like to give the House some examples from Newcastle. Newcastle was a priority area for Labor, as it should be. But it was also a priority area for this government. Under Labor's plan, every home and every business in Newcastle was to get fibre to the premises within three years. It would have already been done and dusted by now. Here we are, in 2016, and what is the experience of the government's prioritising? We were in a priority rollout area, this government said. Well, the government initially removed vast areas of Newcastle from the so-called priority rollout, which we had to scramble to get included back on the NBN rollout. In addition to that, the experience of people in Newcastle has been illuminating, to say the least.

Those opposite purport to be champions of small business in this place and like to suggest that people on this side of the House do not understand small business, do not understand what they are going through. I would like to talk a little bit today about Mel and Gordon Allerton, the owners of a small business in Newcastle, in the suburb of Islington, an inner city area of Newcastle. They are the owners of Opposite Lock. It is an auto accessories place. Most of their business is not walk-in. Most of their business is done through online and telephone contact. They had a thriving business. Regretfully, in the last 15 months they have suffered 66 days of outages—66 days in which they cannot trade. They have lost tens of thousands of dollars. The great irony is that they are not even trying to connect to the NBN at this point. This is just to do with the fact that the old copper pit happens to be positioned out the front of their business, and it is the point of access, the node, which everybody who is trying to connect to the NBN is having to connect to. Whether the technicians are from Optus, Telstra or NBN Co, no-one wants to claim responsibility for most of the outages and stuff-ups in this case. But, regardless of who attempts to try and resolve this issue, invariably when you think you have got a fix it turns out that it creates another problem two doors down or down the track. It is because this is a shonky, second-rate NBN, a piece of infrastructure that this government is now relying on in order to deliver the needs not only of people today but allegedly of the future generations of Australian men and women. It is crazy.

Let me also talk briefly about some residential areas. There are brand-new greenfield builds in areas that are already NBN ready, allegedly. We are not talking about places under construction or places sometime in the future; these are NBN-ready areas. There are brand-new apartments being built, allegedly able to hook up to the NBN. I have been working for six months with a constituent to get the NBN connected to his brand-new apartment. And, when it finally happened, they managed to completely stuff it up again. At the end of the day, he ended up paying for his own electrical contractor to ensure that the connection was made properly. That is another example.

A final example is that in another residential area in the west of my electorate, out in Fletcher, there are brand-new housing developments, with lots of young, professional families moving into the area. Stages 1 to 4 of the development are getting fibre to the node, and stage 5 and onwards will get fibre to the premises. This is within a very tiny geographical area. This the classic digital divide that Labor warned this government about. Under Labor's plan, there were no losers. We do not back winners and losers, but the members opposite are creating winners and losers everywhere.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad to speak today on the coalition's rollout of the National Broadband Network. It is being done efficiently and affordably, with all Australian premises to be connected by 2020. Under the coalition, the NBN is connecting more active users every month than Labor connected during its entire time in government. Under the coalition, the NBN has hit every rollout target we have set since coming into government. It is a fact that NBN is now available to more than one in four Australian premises, or more than 3.4 million premises, with more than 1.5 million active connections.

In my own electorate of Fisher, the rollout of the NBN is gathering pace, with more than 3,000 premises recently connected and ready for service in Wurtulla. Feedback from locals I have spoken to is that the latest work is already delivering faster and more reliable internet access, through fibre-to-the-node connections. As at 28 October, there were 30,694 homes and businesses ready for service in Fisher, and, of these, 11,250 had an active NBN connection. Connections to a further 11,237 homes and businesses are currently being rolled out. In October 2015, NBN Co released its three-year rollout plan, which forecast that, by the end of September 2018, approximately 66,160 homes and businesses in Fisher will either be ready for service or have connections under construction.

I have spoken to some local business owners in recent weeks about their NBN connections, including the owner of Wurtulla Newsagency, Gavin Yarrow, and the arrival of the NBN has made their businesses more efficient. Gavin does a lot of daily downloads for invoicing and for magazine subscriptions, which used to take him and his staff up to an hour. Now he tells me that the same task is completed in just a few minutes, and his new NBN service is actually cheaper than his old internet service.

While it is important to roll out the NBN in the areas where homes and businesses are most concentrated, it pleases me to say that there is also a strong focus on reaching regional and remote areas. The government recognises the vital importance of communications to people living, working and travelling in regional and remote Australia. That is why we have committed to prioritising the NBN rollout to under-served areas, where it is feasible to do so.

The first satellite, Sky Muster, was launched in October 2015. Indeed, there are currently 885 premises in the Fisher electorate eligible to order a satellite service where the standard service will not do the job. That is because connectivity in the form of the NBN or mobile coverage is an essential part of everyday life—for emergencies, natural disasters, businesses, agriculture, public safety, and staying in touch with family and friends. There is more government investment going into regional communications infrastructure than at any time before. The second satellite, Sky Muster II, successfully launched from French Guiana on 6 October, providing additional capacity for the delivery of health and education services as well as improving the productivity of agriculture and regional businesses.

In contrast, despite being in government for six years, Labor did not spend a single dollar on improving mobile coverage in regional and remote Australia. The NBN rollout is further progressed in regional Australia that it is in metropolitan areas. All premises being served by satellite are now able to order a service and nearly 70 per cent of the fixed wireless network is ready for service. Every day, thousands of regional Australians—students, farmers, families and business owners—are benefiting from these improved services. The NBN is on track to be available to half, or 5.4 million, of all Australian premises by the end of June 2017, increasing to three-quarters of premises by the end of June 2018. To date, nearly two-thirds of all premises are in design, under construction or ready for service. Seventy per cent of premises covered by the NBN today are in regional and non-metro areas.

While there is no doubt that transitioning to a new technology can be difficult, the latest Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman report clearly shows that the NBN is getting better at managing new connections and working hard to address service complaints.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded.