Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While the Hatfields and the McCoys were slogging it out last week in National Party back rooms to work out who was going to be the next Deputy Prime Minister of this country, the small businesses in their electorates were struggling with substandard broadband from a second-rate NBN. As the member for Flynn was testing the numbers, the IT firm Reckon released the results of its NBN survey and the results are astounding. Eighty-three per cent of small businesses in their electorates lack confidence in the National Broadband Network and a whopping 54 per cent think that they are going to get left behind as the digital economy develops. They remember the Prime Minister running through their electorates, encouraging them to be enthusiastic about innovation at the very time he was robbing them of the essential tools to innovate. They want their MPs to focus on these issues, not themselves. They are very critical of the government's bungled Mobile Black Spot Program, where one-fifth of the towers didn't fill in a mobile phone black spot. They are concerned that over $500 million in regional grants funding is locked up because you guys opposite can't make a decision. It's time for the Prime Minister to step in, stop this farce, sack the Deputy PM and get on with the job. (Time expired)