Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister promised every Australian would have access to the NBN by 2016. He also promised he would deliver it for $29½ billion. When will every Australian have access to the NBN, like the Prime Minister promised, and what will it cost?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party keeps wanting to verbal me on this. Let me read to you what was said in our policy document:

Our goal is for every household and business to have access to broadband with a download data rate of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by late 2016.

The timetable for the completion of the NBN in our policy was stated, at page 7, I recall, as 2019, so the proposition that it was our policy and our promise to complete the NBN by 2016 is simply not consistent with the policy document that we produced. Honourable members know that, and they also know that, when we got into government, we discovered the full extent of the train wreck Labor had created, and we have been sorting it out. I'll ask the minister to add to his earlier answer about the electorate of Newcastle.

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

I thank the Prime Minister for the opportunity to add further to the answer I gave earlier about services in the electorate of Newcastle. It's relevant to the broad question of the NBN around Australia, because the member earlier asked very passionately about broadband services in Newcastle.

Mr Bowen interjecting—

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

The member for McMahon won't seek to have a discussion across the chamber.

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

ouldn't it, how many services were active in the electorate of Newcastle when Labor left office in 2013. What was that number? Was it a thousand?

Government members interjecting—

No. Was it a hundred?

Government members interjecting—

No. Was it 10? No, it was actually six. There were six services in operation in the electorate of Newcastle when this hopeless rabble left office, and they presume to lecture us about NBN delivery. They made broad, big, sweeping promises—but there were six people in the electorate of Newcastle able to get a service on 9 September 2013. I'll tell you something else: not one of them was on fixed broadband; it was all satellite. Six people! And this mob thinks that the Australian people are going to be sufficiently credulous as to trust them to deliver an NBN rollout. You must think they are complete mugs. I'll tell you what: the Australian people are not complete mugs. They know your track record was hopeless. You promised and promised, and what you delivered was absolutely pathetic. You left a shambolic mess, and we are getting on with fixing it up. That is why there are 6½ million premises able to connect. Another thing you don't understand is that we're determined to deliver customer service of a good, acceptable level, and that is why, if there are issues, as there are in HFC, we are responsibly getting on with fixing them up—total anathema to Labor's spin culture, but that is our approach. We are about delivery. (Time expired)