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

If you work or live with somebody who's constantly saying 'Sorry, what was that?' there's a chance you're talking to someone with hearing loss. Most people are pretty comfortable admitting that they need glasses. I look around this room and every one of us, bar one person, is wearing glasses. But, for some reason, people aren't as comfortable admitting that they don't hear well.

I am perfectly happy to tell you that I have really bad hearing, but, like others who now wear hearing aids, I didn't realise the consequences until I put those little buds in my ear and suddenly there was clarity. I can only compare it to when you first put on glasses and you can finally read each word. People have often commented that I look really intent when I'm listening to someone. I like to think that is from my years of radio journalism, honing my listening skills, but I suspect it's because I needed to pretty much lip-read people to make sure I was following what they were saying. When you don't hear well—and often the decline is so gradual that you don't notice it—a number of things happen. You miss parts of conversations. It's harder to keep up with the flow of a discussion when a number of people are talking. You annoy your family by making them repeat things often. You also ask them what someone said midway through a movie.

It's tiring having to work so hard to hear things, whether it's people or TV or music. It's also isolating. Sometimes it's just easier to avoid conversations. The consequences can be really serious. A new report on the social and economic costs of hearing loss in Australia by Deloitte Access Economics, launched yesterday in this place, puts the financial cost of hearing loss at $15.9 billion a year, and $12.8 billion of that is through productivity losses, mainly due to reduced employment of people with hearing loss. It's estimated that one in seven people have a hearing loss. That is just under 15 per cent of the population. We need to look seriously at how we help these people cope with their hearing loss. The report's data shows that the money invested pays a great return for each dollar spent. As we're at the start of Hearing Awareness Week, I encourage you all to have a hearing test or nag a family member to have one.

There was great delight in Blackheath with the announcement last year that the NBN would begin rolling out. Very quickly, that's turned to despair for many people who now have a poorer service than before. I recently hosted a forum in Blackheath with the Blackheath Area Neighbourhood Centre. We were full to overflowing with people, most of whom were somewhere between disappointment and despair with the NBN experience. Shadow minister Michelle Rowland and I heard story after story of installation problems, wait times, slow speeds and dropouts, and of course there are the people in the too-hard basket, with some extra complication to their connection. These problems, by and large, are because Blackheath and the whole of the Upper Blue Mountains is getting fibre to the node—optic fibre running to a box on their street somewhere, connected to their home by their old copper phone line. One man whose connection is less than impressive shared the comment from a technician: the copper from the node to his house was laid in 1932. You don't get a 21st century telecommunications service on nearly 100-year-old copper. We also highlighted the widespread concern about the loss of phone lines when there's a loss of power, which, as Blackheath knows only too well, can happen in big storms or bushfires.

I'm grateful to everyone who shared their experiences, but it does little to give me confidence about the experience that other parts of my electorate will receive as their rollout continues. In fact, in the Hawkesbury, the inequality of service is staggering. Under Labor, places like Richmond and Windsor received fibre to the premises, full fibre into their homes, equally rolled out from household to household. The worst criticism I recall from that rollout was that the grass wasn't always put back as neatly as it should have been.

But, under the Turnbull government, similar densely populated suburbs, like McGraths Hill, will have to make do with fibre to the node. Wilberforce will have second-rate fibre to the node. Freemans Reach will have fibre to the node. While parts of the new development in North Richmond get fibre to the premises, the rest get dodgy fibre to the node. They are not looking forward to the experience that this government is landing them with. This is on top of other parts of that area being forced onto fixed wireless and still others on satellite. It makes the Hawkesbury one of the least equal places when it comes to internet access. It's something that this government should be ashamed of.