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 second-rate copper NBN.

I call upon those 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

Few things better encapsulate the out-of-touch attitude of this Prime Minister and this government towards ordinary Australians than the issue of broadband and their second-rate copper NBN. You only have to look at the answers in question time yesterday to appreciate the scale of just how far removed this Prime Minister is from the lived reality being experienced by consumers every day, from all age groups, from all walks of life, in every part of the country. Three themes have come out from this government: the preference for spin before the lived experiences of consumers; peddling the fallacy that their NBN, on their watch, is on track and on budget; and continuing the blame game and buck passing—the failure to take responsibility even into their fifth year in government.

In stark contrast, those of us on this side of the House have been listening to consumers. When it comes to broadband as an essential utility, this out-of-touch government favours spin above the consumer experience. We know how important it is for consumers, businesses and the economy as a whole to get world-class broadband to every part of the country.

Looking at every measure on which this government set itself—faster, sooner and more affordable—they have failed on every single count. The evidence is crystal clear. It was supposed to be delivered by 2016. As at 31 December, 7 million premises were still waiting. They promised they would deliver it for $29 billion, and it's blown out to $50 billion. And it's not faster. All you need to do is have a look at the level of complaints that are coming in at record scale from consumers right around Australia. They talked a big game about how their second-rate version would be cheaper. Yesterday, the Prime Minister tried to assert the same. But we've actually known since 2014—thanks to the minister at the table, the Minister for Urban Infrastructure—that the claims that they made when they were in opposition about the cost of Labor's NBN were just wrong. We only need to look at The Sydney Morning Herald on 18 February 2014, where the minister at the table admitted:

… the Coalition's claim that Labor's NBN would cost more than $90 billion … was wrong.

  …   …   …

When asked if the $90 billion estimate was a "political figure" floated to win votes, Mr Fletcher admitted that figure was also wrong.

You don't need to look very far to see the complete disregard this government has and how they've absolutely taken their out-of-touch approach to the next level. Have a look at the Prime Minister only days ago, when he was asked about the NBN on radio. The Prime Minister said:

I think we've got this in hand.

Neil Mitchell said:

But Prime Minister people tell me it is not in hand. Every time we raise it the board is full of people complaining.

We have the cost blow out of $20 billion, a roll-out schedule three years behind the promised delivery time and Australia slipping from 30th to 50th in the world in the international broadband rankings. We've had a 150 per cent increase in TIO complaints about NBN faults. There has been—wait for this—a 1,075 per cent blow out to $640 million in the copper remediation bill.

Those opposite will like to favour the spin, but those of us on this side know the sheer despair that is being felt by Australians for their inability to access broadband and, when they can access it, it's unreliability—the fact that it simply doesn't perform to task. I have one story—we've all heard it—of students who can't download what they need for their school work or their tertiary education. They park outside the public library just to get the free wi-fi or go to McDonald's to be able to access some broadband.

People understand this. It's something for which those opposite give very little credit: the consumers of Australia understand what they should be getting and what they would have been getting under Labor's superior model. People go around the world—I get this all time—and come back and say, 'I was in a remote part of Cambodia, and I had the best internet I have ever had compared to my own home.' The government is completely oblivious to the lived experience of consumers.

Those opposite also purport to be the champions of small business. Let's have a look at what the Council of Small Business Australia had to say in July:

… its members are frustrated and "shocked" with slow connections and poor service under the National Broadband Network, with the problems causing many businesses to suffer substantial losses.

Peter Strong from COSBOA said what the public was told about the NBN was 'not the reality'. He said:

When people think NBN, they think fast internet but then they sign up and find they are getting slower speeds than they were before. We were told it would be so fast it would shock us. It has shocked us but not because it’s fast.

Mr Strong also said that members had reported problems with dropouts and patchy service.

The New South Wales Business Chamber reported that 43 per cent of the 850 businesses it surveyed said they were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the NBN. This is from a government that purports to be the champion of small businesses. This survey from the New South Wales Business Chamber reported it is costing small businesses an average of $9,000 through delays, disruptions and loss of sales. An article in the Newcastle Herald noted that the owner of a Newcastle post office has been without phone and internet for nine days and is out of pocket thousands of dollars and is sick of waiting. The article states:

Australia Post Edgeworth owner Paul Roddenby said his connection was fine until a national broadband network (nbn) technician visited on October 5 for work not requested by the shop.

"He did something, then he said he’d be back in five minutes, and he never came back. It hasn’t worked since," Mr Roddenby said.

Since then, the Australia Post outlet has had no phone, not internet and no answers.

Well, you don't have to look very far for the lived experiences and frustrations of the consumers of Australia with this government's inferior copper based network.

There are Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman complaints about faults on the NBN jumping by 147.8 per cent. Complaints about slow internet speeds are soaring by 48 per cent, and fibre to the node remains a key source of dissatisfaction. You only have to look at the top 10 postcodes for complaints about the NBN and—what a surprise!—seven of them are in fibre-to-the-node areas. Even NBN's own survey data shows that consumers rate the copper NBN below every other technology, at only 41 per cent advocacy. We've even had the NBN CEO forced to concede that this government's 30-year business case doesn't set aside any funding to upgrade the copper network. This means the current business case assumes Australians are going to be stuck on copper until 2040!

On top of this, we've seen nearly a tenfold increase in Australians seeking to pay—themselves—to switch their NBN connection from copper to fibre. And we had the Prime Minister, before the 2013 election, promise that individuals would have the option of paying somewhere between $2,250 and $3,000 to switch from copper to fibre. But NBN revealed the average quoted cost today has been $15,800 greater than what the Prime Minister promised. You don't need to take it from me. In fact, even the government's own MPs are criticising it. The member for Mallee bemoans the rollout of faceless NBN. The Guardiansaid:

… the Mallee MP said he had seen problems with the rollout first-hand as his constituents struggled to make their services work, and he had been forced to dedicate one of his electoral officers to dealing with the complaints.

So there is a dose of reality from at least one member on that side of the chamber.

When it comes to copper or coal and you hear this Prime Minister talk about engineering and economics, you know it's a farce. You know he has failed. You know that this copper NBN is letting down Australians. (Time expired)

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

It takes a certain kind of doctrinaire, political commissar-like insistence to roll out this tedious line that we hear from Labor communications spokespersons in the face of the quantitative evidence that the rollout is continuing and the rollout is going well.

We had an MPI on 17 September 2015 brought by the Labor opposition. There were 1,291,000 premises able to connect at that time. They came back and had another go on 21 October 2015—1,374,000 premises able to connect; 10 February 2016, 1,719,000 premises able to connect. But wilfully turning their minds from the evidence, they came back and had another go on 3 May 2016, when there were 2,428,000 premises able to connect. Then, of course, the member for Blaxland was pleased to be relieved of the terrible job of being Labor's shadow communications spokesman, trying to find gloom as the broadband light increasingly shone over the nation. That job fell to the member for Greenway. On 11 October 2016, she rolled out her first matter of public importance debate on the NBN. By that time, the number of premises able to pass had continued to relentlessly increase to 3,207,700. She had another go on 22 November 2016—again, wilfully turning her mind from the clear evidence that the rollout was continuing relentlessly and that more and more premises around the country were able to connect. By that point: 3,231,397 premises. Evidently feeling a bit depressed by the evidence that the NBN rollout is continuing remorselessly, she hasn't been back to the well until today. It's almost a year since the last time she had a go, but the numbers have continued to inexorably increase. The number of premises now able to connect is 6,188,166. In fact, some 35,000 premises a week are being connected to the NBN.

This is a very large-scale rollout. It is a project which is complex, which covers the nation and which is being delivered notwithstanding the hopeless, chaotic mess that we inherited from the Labor Party when we came to government in 2013. If you are a Labor shadow minister for communications, it seems that you come up with your own version of the prayer of St Francis of Assisi—where there is light, let me find darkness; where there is hope, let me counsel despair; where there is sustained and impressive progress on a very large-scale rollout, let me assert chaos continually and in the absence of evidence.

Let's have a look, in detail, at some of the extraordinarily misleading statements consistently made by the Labor Party and the shadow minister. We saw a shining example yesterday. The shadow minister asked a question about a survey by the reputable internet survey company Akamai which she asserted shows that Australia is behind Kenya. What was her dazzling piece of logic for making this argument? She said that the almost two per cent of people in Kenya who are able to connect to a broadband network should be compared to the result in Australia of a network which is designed to ubiquitously serve the entire population. What an entirely misleading characterisation of that survey but, sadly, entirely consistent with the rhetorical approach we see from the Labor Party, because what they know is that their record on this project is an embarrassing catalogue of ineptitude.

They had six years on the NBN, and they wasted nearly two years on a plan which they couldn't deliver. They had to ignominiously and embarrassingly walk away from it. They came up with a new plan in April 2009, which supposedly was going to be done in conjunction with the private sector. But that didn't happen. A year later we discovered that the private sector wasn't interested in participating. What was the hopeless, pathetic, incompetent record that they left when they scuttled out of government? Barely 50,000 premises around the country were able to connect—barely 50,000 premises after six years of government and spending $6 billion. I remind the House, as I have just pointed out, that we are connecting 35,000 a week. That's 35,000 a week against 50,000 in six years. I'd call one record pretty good. I'd call another a catalogue of rank incompetence and ineptitude. Yet, bizarrely, the shadow minister keeps turning up and wanting to debate this issue yet again, for reasons that are mystifying.

Let's look at the facts about Dobell. We had some questions from the member for Dobell yesterday. She asked about the Rudolf Steiner school in Fountaindale. I can inform the House that the facts are that there needs to be a fixed-line lead-in so that that school can be connected. NBN has scheduled a crew to complete that work next month. Let me respond to the question she asked about constituents in Wyreema Road in Warnervale. The infrastructure has been installed in that street, the work is underway to integrate into the NBN core network, and NBN is aiming to make services available to all premises in Wyreema Road by December of this year. These are the facts.

But let me point out another fact about the electorate of Dobell. Do you know how many premises were connected to the fibre network, the fixed network, in Dobell when this incompetent rabble left office? Zero. After four years, your electorate had zero premises connected to the fixed network. Do you know how many premises are able to connect in the electorate of Dobell today? That number is 86,500. Of those who are able to connect, there are 57,898 premises connected. I say to the member for Dobell: yes, you have identified a couple of instances where people are not connected, and I have just been able to demonstrate when they are going to be connected, but I also say to you that there are 57,898 connected. Let's do a little comparison. One government delivers zero. One government delivers 57,898. I'd suggest that those from the party that formed the first government are really on a hiding to nothing when they pursue this issue.

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

Yes, he's right. He's speaking the truth—he is self-aware!

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

The member for Bruce will quieten down.

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

What is Labor's plan to deliver the NBN? That's a very good question. The shadow minister is very good at complaining. She does a very poor job of telling Australians what her plan is. But let's have a look at the plan that was put forward by the Labor Party for the 2016 election, because I think that's the best evidence we have of the continued narrative of rank incompetence from these people, who have a dismal track record on broadband and no proven capacity to deliver. The promise of the previous shadow minister, the member for Blaxland, at the 2016 election was that they were going to connect two million more premises to fibre than the coalition was promising, and it was going to cost not one dollar more. It's an economic miracle! That is the kind of thing that Swannie's economic brain might have come up with. What did The Australian Financial Review have to say about this ripper plan? It said:

A lack of considered detail bedevilled the NBN under Labor. The fact the party doesn't want to give any details about its new plan—or more accurately, a reinstatement of the old NBN—and not talk about the cost, makes this policy look like the last: an expensive joke.

It was a pretty accurate assessment, because when it comes to delivering a broadband network, this mob on the opposite side of the House have form, and their form is hopeless, rank, embarrassing, chaotic incompetence. That's your track record. We've seen nothing from the shadow minister and we've seen nothing from the opposition that suggests they are going to be anything else. We are getting on and delivering the National Broadband Network.

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

Before I call the member for Whitlam, I will remind the member for Bruce that he is on my list as being warned during question time, so that carries over. I call the member for Whitlam.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, it takes a certain kind of genius, doesn't it, to spend $50 billion on an infrastructure project which is supposed to improve communications in this country, only to see speeds go down and prices go up? This is the stuff that those guys over there say is all going very, very well: $50 billion to see speeds go down and prices go up. That's the experience of Australians right around the country. In fact, from Longman to Logan, from Rankin to Capricornia, right around the country, people are saying the very same thing: 'Do not let these guys near the NBN. They have stuffed up everything they've touched.' The minister was given 10 minutes to explain how they are going to fix this mess. And what was their killer point? What was their killer point? Labor didn't finish the NBN project on the same day that it started it! We didn't finish it on the same day that we started it. That's their killer point. If that is all they've got to defend themselves, Australia is in a world of pain and trouble.

We have got a project that is failing from beginning to end, with connections failing and bad technology. The CEO of the NBN has himself conceded that they stuff it up one in 10 times. One in 10 times, they are stuffing it up. Can you imagine running a hamburger store where one in 10 customers come back with food poisoning? You'd be run out of business pretty quickly. But they think, and this government thinks, that, if you stuff it up one in 10 times, things are going all right. If you want to see the blood drain from government members' faces as quick as anything, just look at them when the Prime Minister says, 'We've got it; it's all going okay,' because they know themselves it's not going okay. They know that there are big problems.

Businesses are losing thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. I see the member for Capricornia in the chamber today, and I'm glad she is. Perhaps she'll have something to say to defend the small businesses in her electorate which are losing thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars because of the failed NBN project in Central Queensland. And it doesn't stop there in Rockhampton and right throughout Central Queensland. Up and down the coast, small businesses and premises are saying the very same thing. They need a champion in seats like that who say they are going to do something about the NBN project, instead of these apologists over there who simply haven't got the answer.

Tomorrow the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman is going to release a report, and it is not going to be good news for you mob over there. It is not going to be good news for that mob over there, because, in the last report we saw, there was a 53.6 per cent increase in the complaints about broadband. I guarantee you the jump tomorrow is going to be even greater than that. Those members opposite might think that's okay. But I just want to leave you with one fact: the telecommunications industry receives over 112,000 complaints a year. That is four times—four times—the number of complaints that the finance and banking industry receives, and you all know what the feeling out there in the electorate is about a royal commission into the banking and finance industry. Why do you think that 'business as usual' is going to be okay? The mob are coming after you. You're doing nothing about it, and they're coming after you.

We've got the ideas for reform. We know what we've got to do. This mob over here have got to improve the rollout and ensure the Australian people are getting the best technology available. We need a tough cop on the beat to ensure that people aren't involved in the NBN ping-pong that you guys are involved in—apologising and blaming but not taking responsibility for anything. We need a tough cop on the beat and we need a set of laws that provide people with the guarantees and the regulations for a decent broadband service, not the outdated system that we have in place at the moment.

So I challenge all those members opposite: do the right thing, get behind your own constituencies and demand a decent broadband service for rural and regional Australia and right around the country, instead of apologising for the rank failure that your NBN project has been. We shouldn't be spending $50 billion on this project to see services go backwards.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance regarding the National Broadband Network. Who could forget that famous flight when Senator Conroy and Kevin 747 jetted off into the sunset on the prime ministerial jet, and I guess champagne was flowing, and canapes were being served, and the NBN was being hastily conceived on the back of a beer coaster! The NBN was planned by Senator Conroy and Kevin 747 on the back of a beer coaster! They didn't know how much it would cost. They didn't really know why they were doing it. They didn't know what the outcome would be. All they wanted was a headline, and a very expensive headline it would be.

We had the promise of this mystical network that was going to be unaffordable to Australian telecommunications consumers. We had promise after promise by Labor and a total lack of delivery. Who could forget the trial in Hobart? The towns of Smithton, Midway Point and Scottsdale were going to become economic powerhouses under the supercharging of Kevin's NBN, but it didn't happen. Smithton, Midway Point and Scottsdale are nice little towns, nice places, but still not supercharged by the NBN. The NBN under Labor certainly set a record. It set a record by missing every target that it ever set for itself. It missed every single target. We had a situation where the massive cost of this was going to push up the price of broadband out of the reach of Australian consumers.

This government takes a much more realistic approach. We are about delivering a mix of technologies that are appropriate. We are about delivering an appropriate investment that's going to meet this nation's telecommunications needs and going to deliver the high-speed broadband that is required, but in the context of budget responsibility. Labor doesn't have any notion of budget responsibility. If Labor's plans were implemented, the cost to consumers would increase by $43 every month.

When you look at the break-up of the customers to the NBN, it's very interesting. Where are most people connecting? Are they taking the high-flying packages? Are they having a cost-doesn't-matter approach to hooking up to the NBN? I can say that they are not. Some 28.5 per cent of consumers are on a package that is 12 megabits or less; 55.6 per cent of consumers are on a package that's 25 megabits; 4 per cent—only 4 per cent—are taking a 50 megabit package; and less than 0.01 per cent are adopting a package over 100 megabits. So, we have a situation where 84 per cent of consumers are taking up plans that are 25 megabits or less.

Under the government's NBN rollout, we are seeing massive improvements in the telecommunications experience for people in regional and rural areas. Those on the fixed wireless network are very happy with the quality of the service that they are achieving. Under the Sky Muster program, we are increasing data limits. We are making it more flexible for those people outside the reach of the fixed line and the wireless footprint. It is all about making an investment that is appropriate.

In this House today, we have had a lot of discussion on power prices. One of the key factors that has driven up power prices is an inappropriate investment in the poles and wires, making power unaffordable to so many households. In exactly the same way, an inappropriate investment in the NBN would have made broadband services unaffordable to Australian households as well. This government is about an appropriate investment, an investment that is absolutely sound from a financial point of view and an investment that will deliver the sort of flexibility that is needed to achieve Australia's broadband needs. We are approaching this in a sensible, well-managed way. Labor missed every target it set for itself. Their rollout was an absolute disaster. (Time expired)

Mr Stephen Jones interjecting—

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

I think the member for Whitlam has had his turn.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many complaints would an electorate office expect to receive about the NBN in one year? One hundred?

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two hundred?

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Three hundred?

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Four hundred?

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Higher: my office has dealt with upwards of 450, and counting, in the last 12 months about the NBN. These complaints commonly fall into four categories: poor experience getting connected, slow internet speeds, being stuck between the retail service provider and NBN—the NBN ping-pong—and technology not meeting consumer expectations. I've heard from businesses that estimate losses of tens of thousands of dollars, from families whose children can't finish their homework, from elderly people isolated and at risk without landlines. I've heard from people frustrated by this blame-shifting between the NBN and their provider. I couldn't put it better than Neil Keele. This is what he said to me, plain and simple:

It's total crap.

The Central Coast is one of the first regions for the full-scale rollout, and there are now five technologies in the mix. We are a guinea pig for the NBN, and there are serious problems with the fibre-to-the-node technology and with the government's handling of the rollout. But I have breaking news. After writing to the minister for 12 months, I have my official response here.

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're lucky!

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know, I'm very grateful! Wait for this:

That nbn has made terrific progress in serving your community is undeniable.

I don't know how 'terrific progress' stacks up against the TIO 2016 annual report, where four of the top 10 postcodes for complaints about the NBN across the country were from the Central Coast. That is now code for 'terrific progress'. I am going to make a bold prediction today. The next report, which we know is due out tomorrow, will be another damning indictment of the rollout—I know this because I hear it every day—but I'm keen to hear it described as 'terrific progress' and 'undeniable'. In the past month alone, I have heard from Michelle in Fountaindale, whose NBN service was disconnected following a storm in February which brought down the overhead lines. She was without a phone line or internet for eight months, but when the NBN came to fix it, they could offer only a temporary solution. With a bit of indulgence, I have here a picture of the 'TEMP NBN'. Thank you for your indulgence.

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

I warn the member for Dobell. Her indulgence is wearing thin.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You would have quickly seen the cable ties where it was connected to the fence. What about Geoffrey from Tacoma, who was switched to an NBN service earlier this year that never worked? Let's hear the NBN's response:

This address was indeed connected to the nbn network in January 2017 but there were numerous service issues and so following a detailed investigation by nbn; it was deemed that the address is not feasible for nbn service. Accordingly, the address was rolled back in our system as not available for nbn service as on 30 May 2017.

I don't know if that's code for terrific or if that's just damn fabulous, but NBN have now taken him off the network, and he has a node in front of his house. Should I go to Henry or should I go to Ken? What about the Steiner School? The shadow minister has been with me to the Steiner School; they presented at the joint standing committee; and we have had commitment after commitment that this school will be connected, but right now, what's ready for service? I was delighted to hear today that the cemetery behind the school is, and the school can still not connect. I am sure that the residents of Wyreema Road in Warnervale will be thrilled with the minister's response:

Regarding your constituents in Warnervale, I presume that you were referring to residents in Wyreema Road, for whom you made a representation last year.

I can advise that infrastructure has been installed in their street, and work to integrate this into nbn's core network is underway.

(Time expired)

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We were enjoying that contribution, too, I can assure you. I could have enjoyed listening to Ken and Derek. Being a roving complaints bureau, as the opposition is becoming as they travel around the country, scurrying around looking for unhappy people, is one way of surviving through the long and dreary years of opposition—wandering around seat-by-seat conducting NBN crisis meetings, where you put on some scones and wait for people to filter in, popping their ALP membership card above their head and sitting in the front row, given a complaint to read out, and then away they go. We had one of these in my electorate of Bowman, where not a single genuine complaint was elucidated for NBN Co.

I'm not saying there are no genuine complaints. The TIO data is absolutely correct. We need to break up the complaints according to the amount of Australia that's connected. If you are going to double the footprint of NBN, then, self-evidently, you are going to double your complaints. If you have twice as many people connected to NBN, self-evidently there will be twice as many complaints. In fact, complaints per population are falling—a very inconvenient truth for the opposition.

The other great concern of our good friends on the other side is that they promised the gold-plated monorail to every home—the super-fast government-run broadband, where everyone got the same colour curtains, and the same length, and it was all going to happen the day after they planned it. They got to the end of their six-year tenure and, of course, just 200,000 houses were NBN-ready. That sounds like a pretty significant number. Fifty thousand had been connected after six years and multiple failed starts. Fifty thousand sounds like a great number. There we were with 50,000 divided by 150 electorates. That's only 300 households per federal electorate. It's worth repeating: the 50,000 who were connected represent only around 300 households per electorate—that's two streets.

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

No complaints in Bowman!

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection from the other side. No, after six years nothing had been done in my electorate of Bowman—zero. With an average of two streets connected after six years, you need to pick this up and ask yourself, in the counter-factual, had Labor continued with their plan how many of the complaints you hear today about our NBN would you have heard for Labor's NBN, where only 10,000 dwellings a year were being connected? They might have upped it to 50,000, but the reality is that it's not 300,000. You need to remember that every complaint you have about the coalition's NBN represents a complaint you'd have had with Labor's NBN, where they basically would drip-feed the nation with fibre to the home and virtually no competition in retail provision. That is quite an important statistic. If they haven't studied economics—and that's everyone on the other side, except one guy who went to ANU and did it through the sociology department—what they won't understand is that with competition between 140 providers you are going to get a drop in price and an increase in data availability. And that drop in price is around $40 a month. Those packages you see from Telstra and Optus are $40 a month cheaper than if you had government provided fibre to the home and no competition in the price at which it is provided.

Take my electorate of Bowman: sure, we'd love a faster rollout, but there are only two potential pathways here. There is the technology mix being used by Scandinavia and by most of the developed world, outside of city states like Singapore, Hong Kong or Seoul, where population density is around 17,000 humans per square kilometre and different forms of economics do stack up. But that's not the case in Australian cities, where Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide have around 1,200 to 2,000 residents per square kilometre. There simply are not enough people paying internet bills to justify fibre to the premises. In Brisbane, where there are 1,200 humans per square kilometre, or in my mainland electorate of Redlands, where there are only 700 humans per square kilometre, there is simply a lot of money paid in rod and roping and not enough customers to pay for the service. That's why the simple premise of the coalition's approach is that we will roll out fibre when it is economically justifiable to do so. That lies at the heart of Labor's approach. They were going to roll out fibre, but six to eight years more slowly. They were going to roll out fibre at $20 to $30 billion more than the country had to spend on it. They can go all around the country collecting complaints, but they cannot escape that brutal reality.

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

It was going to be a game changer, but now all we have is something that is hurting small businesses, hurting the economy, increasing inequality and continually falling short. We were promised big things, very big things, but it has been the fizzer of all fizzers—and, no, I'm not talking about the Prime Minister; I'm talking about the NBN. The government's turning a blind eye to this mess, and my community for one is totally over it. My office, like the member for Dobell's, has had hundreds of emails and mobile phone calls because businesses and individuals have no internet and no landline, all because of the NBN rollout. If they live in one of the many areas in the electorate of Macquarie which have a poor mobile phone signal, they're calling from the top of their street, on tippy-toes, hoping to get a bit of signal.

The most insulting part of all is the insistence by this Prime Minister that nothing is wrong—the delusion that all is well and that the only shortfall is that NBN Co needs to improve its PR and retailers need to lift their game. He maintains copper is king. In fact, we know copper is second-rate. I can't believe the Prime Minister doesn't know the mess he's created. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman clearly knows—it's been a job-creator for them. This is the PM for innovation, but he simply put the NBN in the too-hard basket, along with renewable energy and the rest of his values. In the meantime, communities are suffering as they receive an internet service that is often worse than what they already had.

The experience that I've had in the Blue Mountains part of my electorate is set to be repeated in the Hawkesbury, where, in densely populated suburbs full of small, medium and large businesses, like in McGraths Hill, people will have to make do with fibre to the node, long stretches of copper. Places where the internet could help bridge the divide in accessing mental health services, employment and education—places like Wilberforce and Freemans Reach—will have to make do with FTTN. In fact, there is a one-kilometre stretch in Wilberforce where at one end they're getting fixed wireless, about halfway along they're getting fibre to the node and a few hundred metres down the road they're getting fibre to the curb. How inequitable is that? This is total digital inequality.

It's hard to know where to start when talking about the experience faced by the communities of the upper Blue Mountains with their rollout of FTTN. Let me share a few cases. There are an endless number of them. Terry lives in Leura in the Blue Mountains. Leura went fibre-to-the-node live in August 2016. Terry's been unable to connect ever since. The NBN has identified that there are a number of premises within the FTTN footprint that are unable to receive a connection. Surprise, surprise. They say: 'We're currently investigating options to deliver an NBN solution for these premises. Although we're committed to delivering a fast broadband service as soon as possible, we can't provide a time frame at this stage.' But what we do know is that Leura is going to have its landlines switched off in February 2018. There are no guarantees that these people will even be connected by then.

Nick lives in Lawson. Lawson went live with fibre to the node in August 2016 and Nick switched over. In February this year, Nick's speeds dropped and he logged a fault with his service provider. In September—I think that's about seven months later—NBN was saying it was an issue with the service provider, and the service provider was saying it was an NBN issue. This is something we have all heard multiple times. Nick was persistent; he kept at it. NBN has finally determined that it was a problem with the copper in the street after all—who'd have thought it?—and they have brought about the repairs. Finally, Nick's NBN service is working properly again.

Tim lives in Wentworth Falls. This story will be familiar. Despite a node being only 75 metres from his property, he can't connect, because according to NBN the lines that Telstra has handed over to them are not necessarily direct. So it's not in a straight line. His property cannot be connected to NBN as NBN has identified a high loss of signal on this specific line due to—guess what?—the length of copper. In short, the government have completely blown a chance to make a real difference to the lives of Australians, and they'll go down as the people who took us back to the Dark Ages.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the great historical obligations, burdens or duties of every coalition government that comes to office is to clean up the complete mess they have been left with by the previous Labor government. Where would you like to start? How about the issue of border protection? Look at Labor's border protection mess that this coalition government has to clean up. Hundreds of children locked up in detention camps by the Labor government were let out by the coalition government. There is the issue of trade. We saw the mess Labor created, the delays of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, fixed up and repaired by the coalition. Defence is another policy area of complete and utter disaster from the Labor Party. Again, the coalition government comes in and fixes up the mess. And energy costs. What a mess the Labor Party left us. Under their governance, there was a 100 per cent increase in electricity prices. In six years under the Labor Party we saw a 100 per cent increase in electricity prices.

It is exactly the same with the NBN: another complete Labor mess that the coalition has to come in and fix up. And what do Labor contribute? They put their hands up and go, 'You haven't fixed up our mess quickly enough.' They have created all this mess in every portfolio you can imagine, and their complaint is, 'You haven't fixed up our mess quickly enough.' Let's look at some of the mess they left us with the NBN. We know that in 2013 there were only 51,000 premises connected—that is, one in 50 across the nation. So far, we've got that down to one in two. Then we saw the hopeless budget and time overruns. And who can remember Labor's NBN promotion they did on the internet? They invited consumers or householders to go on the internet and have a look at a map of where the NBN rollout was. This map had colours that would fade away—so when you clicked on the map to try and focus on your street, to see when you would be connected, the map that Labor put up would fade out. Residents had no idea whatsoever.

We knew that people would be waiting another six to eight years if we did not fix the mess the Labor Party left us. That is what households in Australia would be waiting for if the coalition did not clean up that Labor mess. And it would have cost another $30 billion. The changes the coalition have been forced to make to clean up this mess that Labor left us on the NBN have saved the Australian nation $30 billion and six to eight years. This is what we inherited in policy area after policy area after policy area, and the only contribution we can get from the Labor Party is, 'You didn't fix our mess up quickly enough.'

I would like to take this opportunity to give a quick update on my electorate of Hughes—down in the beautiful south of Sydney—to show how we're progressing with the NBN rollout. So far, 44 per cent of the electorate is connected or has passed, and we have 32 per cent of premises that have taken up the NBN. Close to one-third of households in my electorate already have the NBN working in their premises. We have another 48 per cent under construction and ready to go, to be rolled out. My electorate will be complete by the middle to end of next year. There are some suburbs which have waited a long time for the NBN. We know Grays Point will be 1 May 2018. We know Hammondville, Pleasure Point, Sandy Point and Voyager Point are areas that have had difficulty with telecommunications for many years, and the NBN will be rolled out on 1 June 2018. Kirrawee, Chipping Norton and Moorebank will also be rolled out on 1 June 2018. Bundeena and Maianbar, down at the national park, are also areas that have waited a long time for improvements in their communications. We'll have that done next year. (Time expired)

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy for the member for Hughes in the luck he has had with his community getting the NBN halfway through next year, whereas my community has to wait at least until the end of 2019. It's lucky for some, I suppose!

The Prime Minister has made many bold statements about the coalition's NBN, including that it's one of the greatest corporate turnarounds in Australia's history, it will be delivered for $29.5 billion and everyone will have access to it by the end of 2016. Of course, that's not the case. Unfortunately, unlike his colleague the member for Mallee, he has not been bold enough to acknowledge the truth, which is that the NBN rollout has become ridiculous. Like so many of us, the Nationals member for Mallee has to have one of his electoral office staff working nearly full-time to talk with constituents and help them deal with the implementation of the NBN to their homes and their businesses. The member for Mallee, on this point, is right: the rollout of the NBN is ridiculous. It's ridiculous because at the end of 2016 more than seven million premises were still waiting for access to the NBN. It's ridiculous because this multi-technology NBN mess has suffered a budget blowout of $20 billion. Instead of the $29.5 billion delivery cost, it's costing nearly $50 billion. And some of that is paying for 15 million metres of copper! I can hardly believe the things I hear. It's ridiculous because the reality of his corporate turnaround claim is soaring complaints from customers left languishing and constituents still waiting to be connected.

The Prime Minister scrapped Labor's world-class fibre-to-the-premises NBN. It was an innovative infrastructure project and it was a challenging project. It would have delivered the optical fibre technology needed to provide our businesses, our students—all of us—with the tools necessary to compete in the 21st century global economy. Instead, he has left people with a second-rate NBN—it's third- or fourth-rate if I'm honest—that is slower and more expensive, and that's for those who are lucky enough to have access to it.

Only last month I held a meeting in Baldivis with my colleague the member for Greenway, the shadow minister for communications. At this meeting we heard from a roomful of local residents about how their lives are being affected by substandard or non-existent internet access. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the local community needed no prompting to let us know the problems they're having with this abysmal NBN. The Prime Minister should acknowledge how frustrated people are in not being able to work, study or communicate effectively thanks to his inferior version of the National Broadband Network. The stories we heard brought home the impact that living in a communications black hole is having on people's lives. We heard how FIFO parents are not able to keep in touch with their children when they are working far away on-site. We heard how people have to drive to fast-food restaurants to get access to internet so they can check their emails and so their children can go online and do their assignments for school. We heard how people who, in a world with internet connectivity, should be able to log in, work from home and check their emails on a weekend instead have to get in their car and drive 45 minutes to the office. It's a disgrace in 2017 in a community only half an hour to 45 minutes from the Perth CBD.

Not only this but many people in this community of Baldivis—and in Port Kennedy and at some places in Safety Bay—have no mobile phone coverage. They have to leave their home to make phone calls. It's a disgrace! Many people cannot connect to ADSL, as there are not enough ports available. And, thanks to the delay in the NBN rollout—as I said earlier, to the end of 2019—

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the Mobile Black Spot Program?

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We don't get the Mobile Black Spot Program, thanks very much! And we've never had money in Brand. Luckily for you Nationals, you get your pork-barrelling money—

Mr Littleproud interjecting—

You do, don't you. You can just be quiet and take your money while my community has no mobile coverage—so good on you!

No new ports are available. These people don't have the internet, they don't have ADSL, they don't have the NBN and they don't have mobile phone coverage. It's a disgrace! I'm really glad one of the Nationals can joke about this!

Mr Littleproud interjecting—

It sounds like you are. In my community this is an important matter. People are disappointed. They are angry. We don't have to stoke their anger at this government and its substandard NBN. The member for Greenway will back me up on this: we just have to listen to them. The Prime Minister should come and visit us. I don't know the last time a Liberal Prime Minister walked down to Rockingham. I have never seen one and never heard of one. I barely see a Liberal there. I don't know who is running against me next time, but they won't have much luck. Anyway, come and have a chat and try to fix your NBN.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The theatrics that we see here today are a pathetic attempt to conceal the pathetic plan that we were left when we took government—Labor's plan to create a so-called NBN. It was a never-never scheme for Australians. It was one of those grandiose plans that Kevin Rudd decided to come up with that had no substance—made up on the back of an envelope. The reality is we are delivering. We are delivering the tools of the 21st century for every community, particularly my community of .

In the electorate of Maranoa, which takes up 45 per cent of Queensland, we are delivering telecommunications through a coordinated and sensible approach. In fact, it is this government that has, for the first time in this nation's history, appointed a regional telecommunications minister. When we talk about inequality, we are making sure that we deliver real outcomes for people in rural and regional Australia. Sixty-one per cent of the NBN has been rolled out across my electorate of Maranoa already, not only through fibre-to-the-node but through fixed wireless and through the Sky Muster satellite.

We are delivering to households and are making sure, for the first time in this nation's history, that we have designated data plans for children who are receiving distance education. It is abhorrent to think that, until this government came into power, we were letting young children in outback stations go without the tools they needed to get a proper education. We have delivered that because we know what it is to deliver on inequality. We know what it is to make sure, no matter what your postcode is, that you get a proper education, and we are delivering on that. Couple that with the announcement by Minister Nash, only in the last month, that we are going to double the data for those people on Sky Muster. This is also about allowing them to trade and take advantage of those trade agreements that we have put in place as a government. This is something we should be very proud of. When you talk about wanting to go and find Ma and Pa Kettle from every community, let me tell you that nearly 14,000 households have been put onto the NBN in Maranoa. We have had 35 inquiries over the last 12 months. That is 0.2 per cent in terms of the complaints we've had about the NBN. This is a nation-building project. I grant you, there will be some complaints. But when you look at that percentage you can see that this is nothing more than a Labor fallacy, hiding behind the fact that they failed to plan properly. We are delivering for the people of rural and regional Australia.

We are coupling that with a mobile phone black spot program. For the first time in this nation's history, we, as the Australian government, have put our hands in the pockets of government and gone out and invested in telecommunications, particularly in rural and regional Australia, where the commercial tension is not there for telcos to go and build on their own. The reality is we have put over 500 towers in, and we continue to roll these towers out throughout rural and regional Australia, in particular, because those are the tools of the 21st century that we need. We need to have mobility in what we are doing in our day-to-day practices, because we are the economic engine room of this nation. The electorate of Maranoa contributes more to the GDP per capita than Townsville, Toowoomba or the Gold Coast. That's without taking into account the significant energy that's being created in the electorate of Maranoa through the three coal-fired power stations.

It is quite interesting, on a day of such momentous occasion when we are tackling energy prices, that the matter of public importance is something on the NBN. It goes to show that Labor is bereft of ideas and policies. They play behind theatrics and lie to the Australian people. The reality is we are delivering. We are delivering now on energy policies and also on telecommunications, to make sure that we have the tools that we need to take advantage of the trade agreements that we've made. It is something this government does quite proudly, because a government's responsibility is to put an environment and infrastructure around its people. We have done that. We have done that with the trade agreements and also with the small business tax cuts—that is the environment. But the infrastructure is the connectivity that we are undertaking. We are making sure that we are rolling the NBN out, and on time—not six to eight years later, as this mob on the other side would have achieved. The reality is that this is real delivery. We are making sure that we empower the Australian economy and the Australian people to be their very best.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded.