Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just this morning, I was stunned to receive an email from David, who lives in the suburb of Wheelers Hill in my electorate. I have been helping him for some weeks to get the phone and NBN connected. His email was about the latest stuff-up by the NBN. In the more than 100 cases that I have helped with in the last few months, this one is peak stupid.

David is a type 1 diabetic. He requires the phone so that he can make emergency calls, yet it is now 161 days and counting since he first tried to get the NBN. This morning, out of the blue, at 8 am, a contractor turned up at his home. You would think that was good news—but no. This is the fifth time the NBN has appeared at this property and again they have sent the wrong guy. They sent the guy with the cherry picker to do the cable, despite the work order saying that a trenching crew was needed.

The senior people at the NBN simply cannot fix this and, to me, this reveals a lot. I would like to make four points. Firstly, there is no accountability in this system. The telcos blame the NBN, the NBN blames the telcos, but no-one is responsible. Secondly, people like David get stuck in a loop. When there is a stuff-up—and stuff-ups happen—there is no capacity to reschedule the job. You get put to the back of the queue. Another two months go by and then they stuff it up again. Enough is enough! Thirdly, it is time we had a daily compensation penalty to incentivise performance if the service is not provided on time. We used to have that under the customer service guarantee when we had ADSL, and we should have it with the NBN. Finally, it is time the Auditor-General used his powers to investigate the relationship between the NBN and the telcos and get to the bottom of this mess, because the government will not act. (Time expired)