Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that the bill now be read a second time. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not support the amendment but I do support the original motion. I'd like to use this as a bit of an opportunity to talk about the NBN rollout, where it is in my electorate at the moment and why we need this legislation. The NBN rollout in Grey is 98 per cent complete. That's a fantastic number. I'm looking forward to it being 100 per cent, but 98 per cent is a very good number. It's no secret that the NBN is not the NBN that the Prime Minister, when he was telecommunications minister, would have liked to roll out or one that he designed. But he was left a legacy—a legacy that was in shreds. In fact, he resurrected the NBN as it stood when we came to government in 2013.

To refresh the memory, in South Australia and Western Australia, the lead contractor had collapsed and virtually no work had been done. A few streets had been ripped up, and that was it. The contractor had disappeared. So it was in pretty bad form. From the outset, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the then Minister of Communications, said that the NBN would concentrate first on those areas that had the worst service. Naturally, those areas were in the country. And so it is, notwithstanding the fact that those country areas are the least lucrative for the NBN because of the subscriber numbers and the distances involved. As it stands at the moment, rural Australia is two-thirds enabled and metropolitan Australia is only one-third enabled for the NBN. Well done to him and well done to the ministers since that time who have achieved that outcome.

As I said, the NBN rollout in Grey is 98 per cent complete. All the fixed wire componentry in Grey is complete, and we just have a few fixed wirelesses to go, progressively over the next 18 months. The satellite, following some early teething problems, is going very well indeed. In fact, my office has not had a complaint about satellite services since November. In that time, around October or November last year, we actually doubled the size of the packages available to those on the satellite services and increased the peak data periods by about 35 per cent—all at no extra cost to the consumers. So there have been some really good outcomes. We've got a good service, and it's providing good sized packages now to businesses and individuals.

Almost all of the complaints we receive now about the NBN are concerned with transference issues. Many people have issues like the provider not arriving at the designated time to complete the hook-up and the customer has taken the day off work to wait for the provider to arrive—but even those are becoming less—or the phone not working after the transfer is completed. Rarely, if ever, are they issues that are actually to do with the NBN directly; they're more to do with the providers. But these are one-off complaints, and I'm informed that, once the shutdown of the copper network is complete, the technical matters of co-existence will be removed and speeds are expected to increase on the fixed wire network.

So it's a good news story. It's a very good news story, and inherent in the delivery is that the country gets a quality service, a comparable service to the metropolitan areas—an equitable service. That requires cross-subsidisation from the city consumers.

This legislation quantifies and commits to funding that cross-subsidisation. Specifically, the undervalue of the rural network—that is, the net liability—has been analysed, and the figure arrived at is $9.8 billion. In fact, this is the actual subsidy to the rural areas—as it should be. I make no bones about this. Rural people and regional businesses need the same type of access to high-speed broadband as those who live in the cities. In turn, that $9.8 billion, that annual contribution required from all customers to meet the cost of amortising this through to 2040, is $7.09 per service across the whole NBN, or across the whole fast broadband service network, for every customer that is connected. It's important that our city cousins understand the need for this fee. It's all about equality. Telecommunications is seen, quite rightly I think, as an essential service. It's a bit like water. We expect our water to be provided for the same price in the country as it costs in the city. This is one of those essential services, and it's important that we receive a comparable package right across Australia.

It is also important that those in the country realise they are included as equal citizens of this nation and recognise the contribution the rest of the community quite rightly makes to ensure their equality in terms of telecommunications. However, for clarification on that, I might just return to the satellite service for a moment. The satellite service has cost the NBN a little over $2 billion. It's a lot of money. The decision to launch those satellites was made by the previous Labor government, and I would say that, of the entire NBN debacle they left us with, that was the finest decision they made. The launching of the two new dedicated satellites has provided that service to regional Australia, and it would not otherwise be possible. I thank Labor for that; it was a good call.

It is estimated that that satellite service will eventually have 200,000 users. That works out at about $7,900 per connection. That's a lot of money. It's very expensive, but it has to be done to provide that equality. And it has to be done with satellite because the alternatives would be much more expensive. I would just ask those in my electorate who feel a little jaded that they haven't received, for instance, a fixed wire service, to remember that the satellite service cost close to $8,000 a connection and the rest of Australia is paying for it—quite rightly. In light of this debate, it's important that we in the country understand those numbers and own up to how we benefit from that contribution and commitment from across the rest of Australia to ensure that we get that equality.

However, not every user of the fast broadband internet will use the NBN. There are some alternative services which will be operating in the city, primarily around the co-ax cable networks that exist already. If they don't pay the $7.09 per month per connection, that gives them an unfair advantage over the NBN. That is not right or proper, so this legislation will make sure those services are swept up into making that payment as well and ensures that, as an article of faith, they will compete with the NBN on an equal footing. It's a community obligation, and this legislation ensures that all people, all connections, will pay that $7.09 a month. I think it's a tidy way of dealing with the issues at hand.

I'm really pleased with the way the NBN rollout has gone in my electorate. I think I'm close to 18 months from seeing the completion of those final wireless networks—including in my home town. By and large, we have a great service out there now. There are still a lot of people to connect up. Around 50 per cent have connected to the fixed wireless network, and fewer have connected to the wireless networks. But the services are good and I think it's just a matter of time. Certainly, in the fibre-to-the-node networks, there is a final date when service will cease on the copper network. As I said, it's expected that the speeds in the network will increase. But service to the copper network will cease, so people will have an automatic transference at that stage. There are bound to be a few complaints raised again when people are staring down the barrel of a definite date. But these things need to be done. It's a good project that is providing good services, and I'm very pleased with how it's gone in my electorate. The legislation today is an essential part of ensuring its financial viability.

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

It's great to be in parliament talking about this critical national project. It's great to see members opposite celebrating the infrastructure project that they campaigned against when Labor was in government. I welcome the fact they are doing that today. I don't welcome the fact that they're using this as an opportunity to rewrite history, and I'll address some of those issues in the course of my contribution.

There are two bills before parliament. The first is the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017, the statutory infrastructure provider bill, which I will go into some detail about. The second is the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017, which concerns a cross-subsidy arrangement. The competition and consumer bill, the statutory infrastructure provider bill, establishes a regime in schedule 3 that will offer certainty, beyond the initial NBN rollout, that every Australian home and small business can continue to get access to a high-speed broadband connection. The statutory infrastructure provider—the SIP, if I can use the acronym—enshrines in law the obligations that are currently set out in the government's statement of expectations for the NBN. The statement of expectations requires the company to make the NBN accessible to all Australians. This is a carry-through of the Labor policy to ensure that every household and every business in the country had access through fibre, through wireless or through a satellite service to the National Broadband Network. It's now a matter of history that the Prime Minister could not leave well alone. He had to satiate the desire of the former Leader of the Opposition and former Prime Minister to wreck everything that Labor established, including the National Broadband Network. In part, that involved changing the model from one which would see fibre rolled out to over 93 per cent of premises throughout the country to his second-rate copper based system, which is now creating so many problems within the network—more on that in a moment.

The statement of expectations requires that every premises in the country has access to an NBN service, and the bill is going to put that into legislation. It's going to create a legislative requirement for that to occur. It is important now, but more important past the initial rollout phase. I see that the member for Cunningham is in the House at the moment. We share a border in the Illawarra and we share some problems, where you might have infill development or new development in areas and the NBN has already rolled through the place and people are finding it difficult to get the NBN connected to the premises in anything like a reasonable time. A provision such as this creates an obligation on the statutory infrastructure provider, which will be NBN in the majority of cases, to connect those premises on a request from a carriage service provider. The NBN was obviously established to operate as a wholesale-only, structurally separated entity so that retail competition would drive benefits to consumers. This competition would provide lower prices, more choice and better outcomes for consumers and small businesses, and we're already seeing that, to a large extent, across all parts of the telecommunications market.

The statutory infrastructure regime puts into legislation Labor's vision of universal access, which we brought forward almost a decade ago. It provides certainty to consumers, industry and stakeholders about the obligations to supply high-speed broadband beyond the rollout. Of course, there are valid arguments that this measure takes a minimal approach to ensuring the NBN project is accountable to consumer needs and expectations. In particular, it's important to note that consumer protections, such as the provision of a telephone service through the customer service guarantee, do not yet exist for broadband services, and that is a job of work that needs to continue. It is long overdue, many of us argue, and this is in urgent need of redress.

When the member for Grey made his contribution, he said that he barely receives an NBN complaint in his electorate. That frankly does not stack up with the data. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman saw a surge in complaints, of over 204 per cent, in the last year. Talk to most members in this place, and they'll tell you the second or third area of complaints to their office—if not their first at some point in time, particularly in the HFC area—is NBN. We know that the complaints are outstripping the level of activation, so there are issues there that need to be resolved.

I am not one who is not going to give credit where credit is due. Labor has campaigned hard on the demand to see some significant changes on that initial transition program. To some extent, the industry and the NBN have changed some of their processes, and there is improvement there, but we've got a long way to go. We know, for example, that in certain technology areas, there are significant problems. I'm mindful of those households in areas that are subject to the HFC NBN services. We have seen, in data provided by the NBN Co to the Senate estimates committee, that those services suffer 30 times as much down time as the fibre NBN—even worse than the copper NBN, which has twice as much down time because of faults and major outages. So it does pose the question of why the Prime Minister, against all good advice, when he was communications minister, pursued the multi-technology mix strategy, which has led to so many problems throughout the network.

Like the member for Cunningham, I represent a regional electorate where I know a large proportion of my electorate receives services that are not through fixed-line services. With the fixed-wireless service, we know that a quarter of the cells offer speeds that are below the current statement of expectations. This is a matter of concern for people in regional areas. We know that congestion is a problem for around six per cent, by our estimate, and could be affecting around 40,000 customers on 500 of the NBN's fixed-wireless cells. So we want to ensure that, as we are turning our minds to consumer protections and consumer rights, we are seeing those customers who are on the non-fixed-line network receiving the benefits that have been enshrined in statements of expectation and that the government says to the NBN should be the minimum service levels that are expected by any customer throughout the country.

We know some of these problems are going to get worse, by the way. If the network is struggling to deliver 25 megabits per second during peak times now, we know those problems are going to get worse. The reason we know this is that Australians have a voracious appetite for data. Every 12 months the amount of data that we download as a nation increases by 40 per cent—and it's not all Netflix. Yes, there is a component of that in there, but there is a 40 per cent increase every 12 months and no sign of that slowing down anytime soon. You're a wise man, Deputy Speaker. You would have taken note of the fact that we aren't increasing the number of hours of the day by 40 per cent every 12 months, which means, if we don't have a 40 per cent increase in the amount of time to download that data, then we've got to have an increase in our capacity to download it over the same amount of time. That means we need to increase the speeds of download. It's as simple as that. It's kind of second-grade maths.

People on the—I won't use the word 'inferior'—less able network technologies are going to feel the brunt first. Whether they are on satellite or fixed-wireless services, on the copper or the HFC services, that's where the problems are going to be felt first. That is why it is so important that we turn our minds to consumer protections, so that we have the right pressures in the marketplace, on both the retailers and on the NBN, to ensure that people have the technology to do the job that is expected and that people are getting the service they are paying for. It's as simple as that. People should be getting the service that they are paying for. And if we want to enable our businesses, our schools and our households for the digital economy of the future—we used to talk about innovation a lot in this place; I understand it's not the flavour of the month with the government at the moment, but it's still important—we need to enable our digital economy. Clearly, we're not there yet.

I want to say something about the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017. Brought forward in schedule 4 of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017, it sets out a levy that is going to be payable on all non-NBN fixed-line services. The rationale for the levy is that regional fixed-wireless and satellite NBN services are unprofitable. We always knew that. We always knew that if we were going to go for ubiquity and see access to broadband as a citizenship right then there were going to be some areas that simply weren't going to be delivered through market forces alone. That cost is estimated, over the period between now and 2040—as the member for Grey before me mentioned—to be around $9.8 billion. It will cost the NBN Co roughly $725 million annually by 2019-20 to support these regional services.

We need to ensure that those services are maintained. That is why Labor, with some significant reservations, is supporting this part of the legislative package—not without some concerns, and not without a belief that this is not going to be the last word on this particular issue. It is not going to be the last word on this particular issue, and we know that because only a few months ago the government, after years of urging, conceded that it had to get its skates on over a review of the universal service obligations and the customer service guarantees that are attached to those obligations. Quite simply, if a cross-subsidy arrangement exists within one part of a fixed-line network for telephony and phone box services then we've got to drag that into the 21st century. Deputy Speaker, it'll strike your constituents as somewhat crazy, as it does mine, that we have a guarantee to a phone box but not to a broadband service, but that's what the universal service obligation arrangements provide at the moment. They provide significant cross-subsidies for a phone box and a copper-line service. We need to drag that into the broadband age, and we need to look at both the universal service obligations and the cross-subsidies that are necessary for a viable, ubiquitous national broadband network as a job lot. That is why I say that this cross-subsidy charge, the subject of this bill, will not be the last word on the subject. Labor supports it with those reservations.

The reason it's necessary, by the way, and the reason that the charge is falling upon those non-NBN fast broadband providers, is that we cannot have a viable market, cannot roll two superfast broadband networks out to the entire country, based principally on a fixed-line connection. It is simply not economically viable. We have seen that through our pay TV experience. What we can do that's economically viable is have two in an inner city area. The problem is, though, that if one of those providers has an obligation throughout the entire country and the other one only has customers in the inner city then one has a massive market advantage—it's not viable. It's why Labor took the correct decision back in 2007 to mandate the NBN as the principal fixed-line service provider and fixed-wire service provider across the network.

The Prime Minister, when he was opposition communications spokesperson, sent the wrong signals into the market, and that's, in part, why we have the problems that we're dealing with today. Some of the problems we are dealing with today are the result of his interventions back then. We have to put a levy on these to ensure that we have the revenue to cross-subsidise these provisions. With those reservations, I support the bill and the amendment.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In today's modern world the provision of superfast broadband is a basic necessity. It's the foundation upon which virtually all sectors of the economy depend, from education to health care, aged care to social services, agriculture to high-tech manufacturing. It is the 21st century highway that will power our economy into the future. The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017 will significantly improve the provision of superfast broadband across all sectors of the economy and for all users. Passage of these historic reforms will mean a more efficient telecommunications sector fostering greater competition and competitiveness. The package has three parts that all work in concert: introducing a legal guarantee that all people living in Australia will be able to access superfast broadband through the statutory infrastructure provider reforms, providing greater structural flexibility to network providers and small operators, improving competition and establishing the regional broadband scheme to secure an equitable and transparent funding mechanism to ensure the long-term viability of NBN Co's satellite and fixed wireless services for regional Australia.

The bill establishes a statutory infrastructure provider, or SIP, which is required to connect premises to a superfast broadband network, on reasonable request. This will require the SIP to supply wholesale services that retail service providers can then on-sell to consumers, ensuring access to superfast broadband and voice for all premises and consumers. NBN Co will be the default statutory infrastructure provider in areas as it rolls out the National Broadband Network, and for almost all of Australia once the NBN is complete. Other carriers, though, may be statutory infrastructure providers where appropriate—for example, where they have a contract to install infrastructure in a new development. The SIP regime will rectify an existing limitation in the current statement of expectations issued to NBN Co, whereby not all premises may be connected. This follows recommendations of the Productivity Commission in its review of the universal service obligation and will ensure consumer access to services through the SIP.

The benefits to consumers are significant, as there is now a statutory obligation to connect premises that may be difficult or expensive to service and to ensure these consumers are not left behind or ignored. The new rules set out baseline standards that require the SIP to provide wholesale services which support peak download speeds of at least 25 megabits per second and peak upload speeds of at least five megabits per second. Importantly for many consumers, including older Australians, this requirement includes the need to support voice on fixed line and fixed wireless networks. Significantly, the bill also provides clear targets that reflect the current statement of expectations to ensure at least 90 per cent of premises in its fixed line footprint can receive peak download speeds of at least 50 megabits per second and peak upload speeds of at least 10 megabits per second.

Secondly, NBN Co's fixed line network must be capable of being connected to at least 92 per cent of premises in Australia. Finally, the bill allows the Minister for Communications to make for service providers rules dealing with consumer issues like the handballing of disputes between wholesale and retail providers. This will provide consumers with clear information on why any reasonable request for connection has been refused and by whom, enabling them to pursue redress with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman or the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Competition within the telecommunications market has always been somewhat of a holy grail, limited by a tight regulatory environment and natural barriers to entry. Ensuring market operators have the confidence to invest, while protecting consumers from monopolistic behaviour, is a challenge. This reform package contains significant measures to improve competition within the sector. The bill repeals part 7 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 to improve the flexibility of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to regulate certain wholesale superfast internet services to promote competition. The existing separation rules are limiting investment in alternative superfast networks while at the same time allowing other carriers to operate substantial superfast networks that aren't subject to separation requirements.

The amendments make the default structural separation requirements clearer and more effective as a baseline for the industry. The bills will make the carrier separation rules for superfast residential networks more effective but also more flexible, giving operators of networks greater scope to invest in superfast networks and compete. Significantly, the changes mean networks servicing small businesses will no longer be subject to the separation rules, promoting competition and investment and thus encouraging entry of new networks into this market. The bill will also allow carriers to be functionally separated—that is, have both wholesale and retail businesses, subject to ACCC approval—thus promoting further investment with greater certainty for a return on investment. Finally, the bill allows the ACCC to exempt small start-up networks with up to 2,000 services from the separation rules in order to encourage entry into the market and the growth of new providers. These changes will significantly increase competition in the market by encouraging and stimulating investment by the private sector in new networks which cater to the needs of individual customers.

This bill appreciates the value of broadband services for all Australians. Accordingly, this bill establishes the regional broadband scheme, which will equitably share the cost of NBN Co's fixed wireless and satellite networks proportionally across NBN Co itself and comparable networks. It will ensure NBN Co and its competitors operate on a level playing field, each contributing to funding the fixed and wireless satellite networks in regional Australia, including asset renewal and replacement.

For regional and remote communities the value of reliable broadband services is paramount. In my electorate of Mackellar is the remote community of Cottage Point, which is home to 83 adults and 54 families. It's a community that includes a rural fire brigade, a marine rescue centre, a kiosk, a boatshed, the Kuring-gai Motor Yacht Club and Seawing Airways. It's a tourist destination attracting tens of thousands of tourists every year. Yet it does not have mobile service coverage and its only internet service is via an outdated, unreliable, eight megabit per second microwave link to Berowra, routing down to ADSL services around the community. It is downright dangerous that emergency services cannot be contacted directly when phone reception drops out again. Small businesses that depend on data and voice services for everything from bookings to EFTPOS have to continually put up with an incredibly slow service which often drops out for days on end. This is a community that contributes close to $3 million into the tax system every year. They have no public transport, water, sewerage, garbage collection, access to free-to-air television—I don't know why they are complaining about that!—and no kerbs and guttering. All they ask for is basic voice and data services so that their businesses can continue to operate.

This bill is evidence of the Turnbull government's continuing commitment to improving the provision of superfast broadband across metropolitan, regional, rural and remote Australia. The bill will make crucial amendments to the communications regulatory framework to ensure greater competition across both wholesale and retail sectors. By strengthening competition and improving market access for small and emerging providers, consumers are given more choice in choosing communication services that meet their needs. We on this side of the House don't believe in a one-size-fits-all approach where government decides what your needs are and how best to satisfy them. We believe that, by enabling private enterprise to take risks and provide a differentiation in market offerings, consumers are ultimately the winners because the consumer knows what's best for their family or their businesses. But where consumers' options for access to broadband services are limited due to their regional or remote location, this bill ensures they will have access, under the statutory infrastructure provider obligation, to those vital services—because we in the coalition understand that they matter irrespective of their location. I commend this bill.

Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are so many great examples of great Labor policy that will lead the way to significant transformation that were delivered by the last Labor government—the NDIS, renewable energy targets, needs based funding for schools and, of course, the NBN. And funnily enough these great investments, this vision for a better society, have been absolutely destroyed by the Abbott and Turnbull governments. In 2009 Labor announced that it would build a $43 billion National Broadband Network to provide to all Australians universal access to high-speed broadband. This infrastructure would become the digital backbone of our economy, driving social and economic opportunities for decades to come. The original vision was to build a fibre-to-the-premises network that would extend to 93 per cent of the country, with the remaining seven per cent to be served through a competition of fixed wireless and satellite.

The NBN was established to operate as a wholesale only, structurally separated entity, enabling an environment where retail competition could thrive. This competition would provide lower prices, more choice and better outcomes for consumers and small businesses. But coalition governments are not visionary governments, and you couldn't get more policy paralysis than what we have witnessed with the Turnbull government. One of the greatest letdowns, dropped balls and missed opportunities that this government has delivered is the NBN. The great aspiration for high-speed broadband across the country—not just Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but the nation—has been completely lost under the Turnbull government. Under Labor, all new homes and greenfield estates in the fixed-line footprint would have been connected with optical fibre. But, under the coalition, the multi-technology mess has delivered copper into new suburbs.

The Turnbull government's biggest disaster has been the National Broadband Network—or, as I like to call it, 'no-broadband neighbours', because under the Turnbull government that is exactly what my electorate of Herbert has experienced. In many suburbs, one side of the street has access to NBN whilst the other side of the street has no access. So Townsville is full of no-broadband neighbours. No-broadband neighbours are homes that have been declared as service class 0, meaning NBN Co has made an operational decision that it would be too resource intensive or time consuming to connect particular homes to the NBN when it is rolled out in that area. These homes are left behind without certainty as the NBN moves on to the next area. Householders are not proactively informed, and they are not given a time frame identifying when they can expect to be connected. The number of no-broadband neighbours, or service class 0 premises, has now ballooned to nearly 300,000. It is estimated that one in 10 premises will go through this frustrating experience, and the total number could rise to half a million.

Then there are examples such as local small business operator and director of 2Technical, Luke Cashion-Lozell. The toing and freeing has been ridiculous for Luke. The NBN has been connected to Luke's office since March. Even though Luke had a notice of completion from the NBN and 80 per cent of the tenants in the building are connected to NBN, he is being told he is not connected. He's reached out to multiple retail service providers, who will not help. He's reached out to NBN Co, who will not help. He's reached out to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, who also will not help. In his email Luke says, 'I find it horrifying that the NBN Co are able to operate like this, seemingly ungoverned by anyone, completely outside of the purview of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.' I agree with Luke: it is quite horrifying.

Labor is the creator of the original vision for NBN and it will be Labor that will protect the NBN. I support Labor's amendment to this bill to provide scope for the government to direct NBN Co to connect particular premises during the rollout where the company refuses to do so for operational reasons. The amendment would also require NBN Co to proactively notify households if their NBN connection is expected to be delayed for long periods.

This amendment has the potential to assist so many people in my electorate of Herbert—like Dr Paolo Morisco. Dr Morisco runs a health and wellbeing practice in North Ward, Townsville. His new medical site is located on 34 Gregory Street, North Ward. It is a beautiful new facility, with his GP practice on the ground floor and residential units on the top two stories. This building has the latest modern technology. Dr Morisco's previous local was Mitchell Street, North Ward. For those not from Townsville, it is a walking distance of around 350 metre—no more than a five-minute walk. Although Dr Morisco has the latest modern technology and a great new facility, the one thing his practice did not have was the NBN. For months and months he waited. A medical practice cannot be kept waiting. In order to ensure the best possible treatment for his patients and a quality work space for his staff, Dr Morisco set up a satellite at his previous property, which did have NBN, to connect his new practice in order to access high-speed internet. The shadow minister for regional communications, Stephen Jones, heard of Dr Morisco's plight and came to Townsville to meet with him and the staff regarding their difficulties with NBN. The shadow minister arrived in Townsville quicker than the NBN did for Dr Morisco. It is an absolute disgrace that these are the lengths that a medical practice has to go to in order to have access to NBN.

And the examples don't stop there. There's the entire suburb of Jensen, where people were left without any internet or landline phone coverage. The pensioners there, most of whom do not have mobile phones, had no landline phone connection for months, which is a huge safety risk for elderly people.

Then there are the sections in Douglas. Douglas, in my electorate, is largely populated by university students and health professionals. It is a growing development area also. Because ADSL is on the way out and the NBN is very slowly on the way in, there are commercial properties that are home to doctors and university students who cannot access the internet at all. How is a university student supposed to study and research for assignments with no connectivity? How is any of this supposed to be done for those living in the suburb of Douglas if they do not have NBN? Under the Turnbull government, students will have graduated before this government has delivered the NBN. Labor is fighting for our original vision of the NBN instead of the Turnbull government's copper NBN. Placing fibre with copper is the equivalent of replacing a Holden V8 ute with a horse and cart. That's the sort of backward connection the Turnbull government has delivered to Australians in regional areas, particularly in my electorate of Herbert.

The NBN will be the Prime Minister's biggest failure. Malcolm Turnbull promised that his NBN would be delivered for $29.5 billion. The NBN is now projected to cost $49 billion. Malcolm Turnbull promised that every household and small business would have access to the NBN by the end of 2016. He missed his target by seven million homes. Over 5.5 million homes are still waiting. Instead of taking fibre to 93 per cent of the population, the coalition NBN will take fibre to 17 per cent of the population. Consumer complaints are soaring, with the 2015-16 report by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman reporting a 150 per cent increase in complaints about NBN faults. A recent Choice survey also reported that 62 per cent of Australians are experiencing low speeds and unreliable services.

As the economics and business case for the copper NBN collapsed, it became clear that Malcolm Turnbull was no longer willing to defend his decisions. But none of this is the fault of NBN Co, and the finger needs to be pointed solely at the former Minister for Communications and now Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull. The horse-and-cart copper NBN, the rollout issues and the blowout costs are the fault of the Prime Minister, and he needs to be held accountable. The NBN would have been the greatest infrastructure project delivered for regional Australia. It would have opened international connections, opened business opportunities, opened communication and opened access to education for those in regional, rural and in some cases remote Australia. Because of the Prime Minister, regional Australia will now be disadvantaged, with a horse-and-cart copper NBN.

The bill before the House today and the measures in this bill provide greater certainty about these arrangements and the scope for flexibility where the ACCC has decided it is appropriate. Although these amendments will not fix the complete mess that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has created, it is a good step and a necessary step forward. Australian taxpayers have made a significant investment in the NBN, and it is important that regulatory settings ensure that there is a level playing field so that the value of that investment is not unfairly determined.

The NBN was designed to implement uniform wholesale pricing to ensure that wholesale access charges for broadband services in regional and rural areas are the same as those in the cities. In order to do this, NBN is underpinned by an internal cross-subsidy that uses profits from services in the cities to fund services in the regions. The obligation for NBN to provide broadband in areas that would not otherwise be commercial to service is unique to NBN and is not shared by its fixed-line broadband competitors. It is therefore appropriate that companies that are seeking to provide high-speed broadband are broadly subjected to the same regulatory requirements as NBN Co, to ensure that there is complete neutrality. The level playing field rules in parts 7 and 8 of the Telecommunications Act were introduced by Labor in 2011 and applied to superfast fixed-line networks servicing residential and small-business consumers. Part 7 requires operators of such networks to make their network available to access seekers—retail providers. Part 8 requires the networks to be wholesale only—that is, structurally separated.

I do I support this bill, because anything that supports NBN has my vote. But let this be a warning to the Prime Minister that I will be relentless in fighting for more fibre access, relentless in fighting for a faster and quicker rollout and relentless in my support for NBN in regional and rural Australia.

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

When Labor initiated the NBN almost a decade ago, I think I would have been considered an early adopter. I could see the benefits for an outer-metropolitan and semi-rural area of high-speed broadband. I was also frustrated, as a small-business owner, by poor quality ADSL from my mountains home, and almost non-existent mobile, and had many conversations with other small-business operators about the need for a reliable, faster internet connection. At the time, I thought NBN would deliver. The statement of expectations set out by Labor required the company to make the NBN accessible to all Australians. That is happening and will continue to happen. This bill does provide certainty that from 2021 it will continue as was always the intention, although I believe the change in the mix of service has been incredibly detrimental to the integrity of the network. It has, quite frankly, created inequality across my electorate of Macquarie.

Let's go back and think of where we were in 2009. After more than a decade John Howard had ensured that Australia was in the broadband backwater. It was Labor that carved out the principle that every Australian should have access to modern communications infrastructure. It took those opposite many years to come to the party and sign up to this principle. In the end they had no choice because, in spite of the irresponsible claims that no-one needed fast upload and download times, businesses, students and families all realised that in fact they did. Labor is proud of having fought for and reached this point.

Labor supports the regime as outlined in schedule 3 of the bill. The Statutory Infrastructure Provider regime will offer a natural extension of the current arrangements—the certainty that, as we move beyond the initial NBN rollout, every Australian home and small business will continue to get access to high-speed broadband connection. It is fundamentally about equality of opportunity, and it will ensure that Australians can access high-speed broadband irrespective of where they live and work. But—and there is a but—there is so much more to do to make this NBN work the way it's intended.

I'd like to talk about some of the local issues we face in Macquarie. The plan of works yet to be rolled out offers no equity for people in my electorate. For a start, my electorate has five different types of broadband. There is fibre to the premises, top of the line thanks to Labor, through the suburbs around Windsor and Richmond. Fibre to the node through my upper Blue Mountains towns, from Mount Victoria to Lawson, demonstrated that this has been a very poor substitute for quality, and, unbelievably, we have more FTTN to come. We have the Sky Muster satellite, we have fixed wireless—also an incredibly disappointing technology not just for the fact that it requires giant towers across rural landscapes—and shortly there will be fibre to the curb. All of them have their challenges, but I would much prefer to be dealing with some dug-up clumps of grass than the service-zero issues we're seeing with the FTTN rollout in the upper Blue Mountains.

Last year retail service providers were called out for selling speed plans that the copper NBN couldn't deliver. And my constituents fell victim to those. Nearly one in two customers on the copper NBN who were paying for the top tier speeds had their speeds downgraded and were compensated as a result. It was later reported that one in three homes on copper can't achieve 50 megabits per second, and three out of four can't achieve 100 megabits per second. The Senate also learnt that no funding was set aside in the government's NBN business case out to 2040 to upgrade the copper footprint.

We have a system being rolled out that relies on copper in so much of my electorate, but it relies on the assumption that the copper connections won't need to be upgraded for at least another 23 years. That defies logic. I get reports from constituents, based on comments that technicians have made to them, about the quality of the copper right across the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. In Bilpin, like many other upper Blue Mountains locations, the copper is old. Bilpin is geographically not far from Sydney—but it might as well be. It's got orchards and cider and is surrounded by World Heritage national park. It's subject to storms, bushfire and snow. The copper is not in great condition, and the quality of landline and ADSL is awful. There isn't a decent mobile signal in many parts of Bilpin, yet this area is only getting fixed wireless, so those landlines and that copper will still be needed, particularly in bushfires.

Residents have raised with me a number of practical issues about the rollout of fixed wireless in their area. For a start, wireless signal requires line of sight for best results, and less than 10 per cent of households in Bilpin have line of sight to the planned tower. Both trees and hills have a huge effect on the signal, and residents have pointed out that the signal only travels around 12 kilometres with direct line of sight, so many homes are out of the line, although the map that showed this on NBN's page has apparently been removed. The signal degrades and cuts out in heavy rain, and, yes, we get heavy storms in that part of the Blue Mountains.

Their other big concern—and this would be a concern to anybody who has people in bushfire areas in their electorate—is that they have no battery backup for the fixed wireless towers, so they don't work in a blackout, leaving residents with no phone line. We have the same issues with FTTN, of course, yet those residents won't even have the choice to keep their fixed landline. In Bilpin, people will have a landline that they can choose to keep, but they will continue to pay their landline rental on top of their NBN. It is hardly equitable and hardly fair, especially when you consider that Bilpin has a fibre-optic cable running from Kurrajong Heights past it, all the way to Berambing, so residents are really struggling to understand why areas not dissimilar to theirs are being gifted FTTC but they are stuck with fixed wireless.

A new resident to the Hawkesbury, Greg, who lives in Maraylya, in another part of my electorate, has been gobsmacked overall by the lack of service that he receives. Even though he's only moved 40 kilometres to the edge of Sydney, he describes the telecommunications conditions in Maraylya as Third World. What he's staggered at is that he's slated to get fixed wireless not this year, not next year, but in 2020. And that's as good as it will get under this government. His dismay is shared by a wide range of Maraylya residents. In fact, it's a total mess to try and guess what you're going to get if you live in Oakville, which has some parts FTTP, some parts fixed wireless, or McGrath's Hill, a major commercial centre that's getting FTTN, even though, next door, Windsor has FTTP. Wilberforce and Freemans Reach get stuck with FTTN. It is a complete hotchpotch in my electorate.

The choice of cheap and poor-quality technology and the lack of vision for this rollout as we're seeing it, particularly in the Hawkesbury, stand in stark contrast to other things the community sees government doing to it—for instance, the New South Wales government's obvious desire to colonise the region with dense housing developments. Let me explain. From Oakville to Grose Wold, this is a region of small communities, with paddocks and acreage where people grow vegies, keep horses and have koalas, lyrebirds and platypus in their backyards. They make a choice to move there to enjoy the peace and quiet. Most of these areas are not considered by this government's rollout to be dense enough to deserve anything other than fixed wireless, FTTN or in some cases satellite NBN. But the New South Wales government has other ideas about what will happen in the next few decades in these areas and envisages intense development. How do I know this? Why else would they be rushing through the drawing of lines on a map for two major motorways—the M9 Orbital and the Bells Line of Road? If you didn't think there were going to be changes to the area, you wouldn't need to put these on the map for times going forward. If you think this area is going to remain relatively sparsely populated, there is no need to preserve a corridor now. Hawkesbury residents will know what I mean when I say that the state Liberals have a vision of endless Redbanks west of the Hawkesbury River. I'm happy to put on the record that I am strongly opposed to that. The city should stop at the Hawkesbury River. If that is your vision, be honest about it. It's one thing to plan for future road and rail corridors but it's another to do it with absolutely zero community consultation. If that's the vision, make sure your fellow Liberal government in Canberra knows so that decent NBN can go into the region, so infrastructure can go in ahead of populations. And if you're just using it to score political points west of the ranges for your National Party colleagues, then don't. Do not treat my community, my families, my businesses, my farmers, my schools as your plaything.

An inferior NBN is symptomatic of an inconsistent vision for the Hawkesbury. On the federal government's part, it's a total lack of interest or understanding about how important and effective NBN is for this region. Quite simply, under this Prime Minister we have an NBN that is costing taxpayers $4 billion more to build than it ought. It delivers slower speeds. It is less reliable. It costs more to maintain. It is more exposed to competition from wireless. It costs more to upgrade. And it generates less revenue from those who are willing to pay. For my electorate, the slow speeds, the dropouts and the unreliable services mean that they will look to any alternative that they can find.

Trying to get issues and complaints dealt with by the NBN is as difficult as getting Donald Trump to speak in understandable sentences. They pass the buck without accountability. People make appointments with technicians only to find that no-one turns up. It's no surprise that the TIO, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, revealed a shocking increase in the number of complaints about the NBN—a 160 per cent surge in NBN complaints. I confess that many will have come from the electorate of Macquarie. For the first time, NBN complaints are growing faster than the number of new NBN services. What a damning statistic. Also for the first time, internet services have become the largest source of complaints for the TIO. All the while, the Turnbull government has been an uninterested spectator on the NBN—and this from a Prime Minister who used to have some claim to being at the front of the IT game. What a sleight of hand that was. CHOICE surveys report that 60 per cent of people on NBN had issues in the last six months; 44 per cent of these issues were related to slow speeds, 42 per cent were reported disconnections, dropouts and performance issues, and 31 per cent were problems with connections. When you look at that you know you have problems that need to be solved.

I want to finish with the issue that I started with, the issue of inequality. And I want to take a moment to talk about the impact of technology on inequality, which is actually really what I think the core of this debate is. The NBN was originally an opportunity to reduce inequality, but, the way it's going, it is failing at that. The most recent report by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia takes a close look at inequality, including the future relationship between technology and inequality. The report says:

Technologies … increase the productivity of industries, groups and individuals to different extents, skewing the rewards of labour to those able to access and make use of the new technology …

This report asks:

… how do we ensure that it’s not just the well-educated, the well-connected or the wealthy that get to benefit from new technologies?

As we heard last year, the Prime Minister, with his Point Piper home, was privileged to receive a speedy connection to the NBN and is now, apparently, able to access the highest speed possible—100 megabits per second download speed and 40 megabits per second upload speed. Greg at Maraylya and my Bilpin residents can only dream about that. So let's be blunt. If you are not giving people equal access to technology, you are not giving them a chance. Sadly, as we so often see with this government, the already privileged get more privileged and the rest just get done over. What I see across Macquarie is a completely uneven, unfair and unsustainable approach.

The CEDA report also leads me to ask yet again why this government is so bent on reducing the opportunities for people to access skills through more cuts. We saw in the budget last night more cuts to TAFE, to the tune of $270 million. Why are so many impediments put in the way of people who want to go to university? Why are limits put on universities' ability to offer new and innovative courses that give people the chance to explore new technologies, all because of funding cuts? It shows the folly of this government's intent to cut funding to schools, of which 82 per cent of the brunt will be felt by public schools. As CEDA says, the challenge is to ensure that no-one is unfairly excluded or discriminated against along the way. But that's what we're seeing with the NBN.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member Macquarie for her fantastic explanation of the issues, which affect my electorate as well. It may surprise you to know that I'm not by nature a complainer or a whinger, but on this issue it is just a farce that we have been left in this situation by a man who thinks he invented the internet. I've spoken a number of times in this chamber about the poor state of affairs that the NBN is in and how this Prime Minister has truly bungled a once-in-a-generation, once-in-a-lifetime nation-building project, but bungled it has been. Judging by the number of constituents I hear from who have issues with the NBN, I believe the Macarthur region in outer south-western Sydney is one of the worst hit areas nationwide. I shouldn't be surprised about this. State and federal Liberal-National party governments have neglected to provide infrastructure in many areas—including housing, education, health and transport—in south-west Sydney, so why should the NBN be any different? Indeed, it's no different. There is a very poor provision of services. As the member for Macquarie has explained, those who are most disadvantaged appear to be worse off, and there is very little commitment to (1) admitting there's a problem—and there clearly is—and (2) fixing it. It's clear that this government, under the stewardship of the Prime Minister, does not understand how to deliver on vital infrastructure projects. That is true across the board, but particularly so with the NBN.

I spoke last year in this chamber about the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman's report which identified many cases in south-west Sydney of constituents who had been let down by this government's second-rate NBN. I have spoken to many telecommunications engineers who tell me that this problem was completely predictable. By using a half-baked NBN relying on the old copper network in many suburbs in my electorate that are 30, 40 or 50 years old, we were never going to get adequate services, and indeed that has proved to be the case.

There have been so many issues. I even held an NBN forum on two occasions in my electorate, inviting people to share their stories with our shadow minister for communications, Michelle Rowland. I appreciate that many people are not always available to come down to my office between nine and five, Monday to Friday, so I held the forum on a weeknight in a local community hall. Even though there had been lots of complaints, I expected maybe only 20 or 30 constituents to turn up, but in fact hundreds attended. Given that evenings in Macarthur can be very hectic for families, with kids to be fed and bathed, homework to be done, and people often getting home from work after travelling for hours, many people attended these forums and voiced their concerns in no uncertain manner about the NBN—not only the service they were receiving but also the problems they were having in making their difficulties understood by the telecommunications providers and the government in particular.

The vitriol directed towards NBN Co and the Liberal-National government is so strong within Macarthur that there are many more complaints to my office every day. People express their concerns to me after busy days at work and school, along with all the other issues that families face. To be perfectly honest, the volume of complaints my office receives has slightly slowed down in the last few months. When I inquired of long-term complainants why they had stopped complaining, many of them said that they had found the issues too difficult to deal with, and the lack of response from providers so poor, that they had given up.

There have been instances where many small businesses have had to close or send staff home because their phone lines were down, their internet didn't work and EFTPOS services had been disrupted. As the owner of a small business in Campbelltown and Camden myself, I can assure you that such disruptions can bring businesses to a standstill, cost a lot of money and are incredibly frustrating. Currently there are even instances of local medical centres losing all phone lines and telecommunication services. It means they're unable to process Medicare claims; bulk-bill; see X-ray films and pathology results; forward patient records, which can be vital in emergencies, to other medical services, such as hospital emergency departments; and sometimes even answer the phone to book in appointments.

There have also been instances where the elderly face significant hardships at the hands of this government and NBN Co. Even in the last month it has come to my office's attention that a 95-year-old had been without a stable phone line for six months. Surely this is something that demands urgent change. This is all due to the government's poorly functioning NBN. I don't believe that this government, this Prime Minister and this communications minister understand the impact that their bungled NBN has had on many disadvantaged Australians. If they had any appreciation of the difficulties they have caused, surely they would do everything in their power to change the situation. It has all been predictable. Even now suburbs are still being connected to the NBN through what we know are very poor, terribly degraded copper phone lines. There is going to be a problem.

The tumultuous nature of the NBN rollout under this government, and the lack of quality service provided by their second-rate NBN, has been crippling for many small businesses and people in the Macarthur electorate and has caused a great deal of distress for many families. Like the lack of proper infrastructure in many other areas—transport and health—this disadvantage is predictable, it's occurring now, and the government is doing nothing about it. I put it to you that, in this day and age, no business should have to close due to the government's inability to manage telecommunications, and no individual should be made to worry due to their inability to get hold of a family member who lives by themselves, but it's still happening.

It's one thing for somebody in the middle of a city to be hit hard by the government's failures, but, in an area that lacks proper public transport and where many suburbs are quite isolated, this can be catastrophic. There may well be people who can't even get proper mobile phone reception in some areas of my electorate. Under the Liberal-National government, NBN Co and telecommunications companies expect people to merely get another device or find some other way to communicate, but that's not true for many in my electorate in south-west Sydney.

As outrageous as this is, at least those in built-up and metropolitan areas have an alternative. Those in remote, rural and regional areas—and even outer suburban areas like my electorate—are being made to suffer unnecessarily because of the government's lack of urgency and understanding to respond to these issues. I can only assume the coalition expects people who live in more isolated parts of the country to revert to some other way of communicating, such as smoke signals and carrier pigeons, when they're being let down by this second-rate NBN. What else is somebody who lives in a mobile phone blackspot supposed to do when their phone lines are down, they can't communicate using the NBN and they're in distress? How is a farmer whose nearest neighbour is 40 kilometres away supposed to maintain contact with the rest of the world if his phone line is down, the NBN is down, and the government can't ensure stability in telecommunications?

Once again we see the Liberal-National government's utter contempt for those in regional Australia and less affluent suburbs. It's truly a wonder how the coalition agreement is still intact and that the Nationals have any relevance left with their original voter base, when we consider these realities and their lack of urgency in attempting to get the Prime Minister to see the importance of these issues. The biggest joke in modern-day politics is that the Nationals believe they're standing up for regional Australia when they're doing nothing of the sort, particularly when you look at the NBN, where they can't even ensure connectivity for their constituents in their regions, yet they sit meekly by and watch the Prime Minister thumb his nose at them. Perhaps if their party were less focused on inner turmoil they would have steered the government in a better direction with the NBN. I also think that, on the recent announcements about cutbacks in the ABC—when the ABC is so important to rural and regional Australia—the National Party should surely be saying to the coalition: 'Do something about this. We need to expand the services of the ABC, expand their reach and provide them with adequate funding to deliver to rural and regional Australia.' Yet the Nationals sit there and say and do nothing. They seem to cave in to the concerns of the 'Hansons' and to the right wing of the Liberal Party, with their attacks on the ABC which are contributing to poor communications in rural and regional areas.

Perhaps the second biggest joke is the fact that this Prime Minister, who made a fair bit of his fortune in telecommunications, still thinks he can flog the dead horse that is his second-rate NBN without doing anything about it. Madam Speaker, you may remember a time when the Prime Minister thought it was a good idea, under the leadership of his former boss the member for Warringah, to rip apart Labor's NBN. Apparently, there was no need to ensure that everyone had an equal service. Some would get a first-class fibre-to-the-premises connection and others would get a dodgy fibre-to-the-node connection, and that was just tough luck, because those who were getting fibre-to-the-node were mostly in rural and regional areas, in disadvantaged areas and in outer suburban areas which had no relevance to the Prime Minister because he was fine in Point Piper getting his fibre-to-the-premises NBN.

The existing copper was fine, the Prime Minister believed—even though I know he was told the opposite. He was told that there were going to be problems, and yet he still persisted with his second-rate NBN. There was apparently no need to install a state-of-the-art world-class network for all because the people who mattered were going to be okay. We, on this side of the House, knew this to be a falsehood and that the coalition's second-rate service would not pass the test of time. And, indeed, it hasn't. It was not long before we uncovered the truth—and I am happy to admit I was on a very steep learning curve. The truth about the NBN is that some people are getting an excellent service, some people are getting a reasonable service and many—10, 15 or maybe even 20 per cent—are getting a terrible service or no service. Yet it was okay, according to this government and this Prime Minister, for them not to be treated as first-class citizens. The existing copper network is not sufficient. It's quite clear this is the case, and nothing has been done to change that. We will continue to have these difficult issues without it being explained appropriately to the Australian population.

What does the Liberal National Party government do now? It doesn't replace the dodgy old lines with fibre reconnections. It has purchased more copper to service their second-rate scheme, causing continuing problems. It just beggars belief. It's not going to get better; it's going to continue. How anybody can believe that the Liberal National Party government is economically responsible when they make a move such as this is astonishing. This decision angers me, as a member of this place, as a taxpayer and as someone who feels that we are all equal in this society. It just reeks of incompetence and a lack of care.

The public were assured that this government's NBN would come quicker and at a cheaper cost. Time and time and time again, we have witnessed a complete blowout in the rollout, a blowout in expenditure and a blowout in complaints. With the taxpayers being made to foot the bill to purchase more out-of-date technology, it's likely that matters will just get worse. They can't do anything to roll out infrastructure properly, and it has now become past a joke.

Feeling optimistic, I am quite hopeful that eventually government will learn the lesson. It may well be too late for them—they're taking years to learn that—but maybe, eventually, they will consider the change. It will probably be too late—they won't be in government anymore. The optimism that I had initially about the NBN, with the Prime Minister's reassurance, has been crushed. I have come to the realisation now that there's not going to be any short-term move by this government to improve the NBN.

With my constituents, I'm trying to do my best to make sure that their complaints are heard and the problems can be remedied, but, for many, I can't. It would seem that the NBN Co and the government have, in fact, not been listening and are not taking any serious action.

I also would like to point out, as an aside, that the percentage of premises able to connect to the NBN has actually dropped since November last year—fewer people can somehow connect to the NBN—according to the NBN Co itself, because some of them will never get a proper service. It is staggering to me that this is still the case.

I would also really like to acknowledge another piece of information that I've uncovered from NBN Co itself. They said:

We are currently running our repairs with 85 per cent of NBN faults within our agreed service levels …

So there's still 15 per cent that is not being treated appropriately. I may be mistaken, but to me it sounds as though the NBN Co is failing. (Time expired)

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday the Treasurer stood at the dispatch box in the House, in his usual thunderous manner, to declare that the Turnbull government is a tax cutter. Yet here we are, a day later, debating this supposedly tax-cutting government's introduction of a new tax that will cost up to 450,000 Australians an extra $84 a year. There's eight weeks worth of tax cuts gone, just like that. If we've come to understand one thing about this government, it's that they say one thing and do another—from no cuts to the ABC and health to no dollar difference for school funding. They cannot be trusted at their word.

This new broadband tax is a direct result of this government's failure to properly implement the National Broadband Network. More particularly, it's this Prime Minister's failure—and it is a personal failure. He had personal carriage of this portfolio as the former communications minister, and he has had personal carriage as Prime Minister. The failure of the NBN under the Liberals can and should be laid at the feet of this Prime Minister, who promised Australians a cheaper and faster NBN. It's certainly cheaper, in the way that a Moskvitch is cheaper than a Ford. Its component parts are inferior. It's nowhere near as well designed, and it's falling apart before it's even finished. The NBN under this Prime Minister has become a cobbled-together mess, reliant on last-century copper that is incapable of delivering the services that the 21st century requires.

As a member of the parliament's NBN committee, I've heard testimony from witnesses, including home owners, academics, small-business people, technicians and bureaucrats. The evidence overwhelmingly is that the NBN being rolled out by this government is already not fit for purpose and is already proving to be a serious drag on our ability to compete in the global market. At the consumer level, the Liberals' NBN is failing at even the most rudimentary level. Families can't stream movies. Kids can't do their school and uni projects. Businesses can't get reliable connections for wireless transfer payments. And, to top it all off, despite having become this sad and broken thing, the NBN is still proving to be more expensive than the Prime Minister promised, and now he has to pay for it. More to the point, he's making Australians pay for it.

This new tax will compel broadband infrastructure providers to add $7.10 to their customers' monthly bills. You won't see any reference to this new tax in the budget papers. Because of the mysterious way that financial reporting works, it doesn't appear as that sort of revenue. There's no talk on morning shows about the new tax, which will cost Australians nearly $34 million a year. I think the shadow minister said that it will be close to half a billion dollars over 10 years. The tax will also be charged to all non-NBN consumers receiving fixed-line services capable of delivering a minimum speed of 25 megabits per seconds download. This essentially captures those receiving fibre to the node, fibre to the kerb, fibre to the basement, fibre to the premises or HFC. The government says the tax is necessary in order to guarantee the sustained rollout of broadband services throughout regional Australia, which is where I'm from. But the Prime Minister didn't say any of this before the election. This Prime Minister never told Australians he would be so utterly hopeless at his job that he planned to introduce a new tax simply to provide what is, for so many, a substandard internet experience.

Labor's approach was so different. We would have provided fibre to the premises to more than 93 per cent of Australians, with Australians in small regional towns—not big regional towns but small regional towns—and isolated properties to receive either fixed wireless or satellite services. And we would have done it without charging homeowners thousands of dollars more for a fibre to the premises connection, and we would have done it without imposing this tax, because Labor believes in the principle of a universal right to broadband access. We know that connection to the internet is as necessary to modern life as the telephone was 100 years ago. It is not a luxury that should be provided only to those who can afford it or in areas where someone can make money from it; it is a service all Australians deserve, no matter where they live, and it should have been done without this tax.

Labor is not opposing this measure. We don't like it—and we wouldn't have done it, because we would have funded national broadband properly—but, because of this government's incompetence, regional Australians risk being left behind without this revenue measure. Already people in regional electorates like mine are missing out on broadband, even with the NBN supposedly rolling through their communities. The government boasts about the speed of its rollout. It's like boasting about rolling out a new highway with the potholes already built in. Hundreds of properties are being left behind during the rollout, like pimples on a face, and not being connected, because they are deemed too difficult or unserviceable. This is happening in places like Dodges Ferry and Brighton, which are technically regional but are less than 40 kilometres from Hobart's CBD. These are fast-growing communities that deserve better broadband. Homeowners are being told they can't get connected, but their neighbours can. They're not given any indication about when NBN will be back. For some the wait has already been months and could drag on for years. Meanwhile these folk either have to put up with the old ADSL, if it's there, or stump up for mobile data, assuming their mobile coverage is adequate. These people are victims of this government's obsession with spin over substance. It's more interested in the speed of the rollout than the quality of the rollout.

Take Shaun, for example, a network engineer who lives in Pontville, within the Brighton Council. Pontville is a compact town less than 40 kilometres from the Hobart CBD and less than five kilometres from the thriving and quickly growing centre of Brighton. Shaun first contacted me in August last year. NBN Co would have you believe its rollout for Shaun's area is completed, but it's not. There are four streets with no connection, including Shaun's home. The infrastructure is in place, but NBN Co advises there will be no connection to the area at Shaun's property until later this year, nearly a year since he first got in touch. NBN Co could have connected Shaun and his neighbours, but that may have slowed down their rollout to easier addresses and interfered with the government's agenda for a good news headline. NBN Co is under pressure from this government to connect 90 per cent of properties to the NBN in every area where the rollout is occurring—but too bad if you're in the expendable 10 per cent! I've had almost continuous contact with NBN Co about Shaun's issue, and the conversation does not change. Apart from saying it is meeting its 90 per cent connection target, it refuses to concede any other point.

If we travel further into my electorate, to the Central Highlands community of Miena, we can see even more evidence of the appalling infrastructure that is being rolled out by this government. Miena is remote. It has a static population of around 60 people, which swells to thousands during summer and over long weekends, when shack owners and tourists flock to the area. The current fixed wireless NBN in Miena is pretty ordinary, and the area is prone to blackouts, which is not great when you're surrounded by bush which is prone to fire, and your new NBN service means that when the power goes out so does your phone. It's usually the case that when the NBN rolls through they turn off your old phone, but what's little known is that in fixed wireless and satellite areas you can ask for your old phone to stay on, connected to the exchange. Margaret in my office discovered this and relayed that to the people of Miena, and you could hear from hundreds of kilometres away the sighs of relief that they could access their phones when the power was out. I must give a shout-out here to NBN Co's man in Tasmania, Russell Kelly, and to Telstra, who both acted quickly and cooperatively to ensure that the people of Miena did get to keep their phone connections with a minimum of fuss.

Further north in Lyons—it's a big electorate: 30,000 square kilometres—in the township of Westbury, another of my constituents, Graeme, was advised by NBN Co that he could connect to the network, and, acting on this advice, he signed up to receive the NBN. (Time expired)

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017, cognate with the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017. I rise with an intent to express my concerns regarding the contents of both of these bills. From the outset, I want to express my deep frustration with the current state of the National Broadband Network. When I say 'current state', I mean the state of the National Broadband Network since this government took office. Put simply, under the Abbott and Turnbull governments we have an inferior NBN that is slow and expensive—and these bills do not address these shortfalls So, while I'm pleased to join my colleagues here to speak on these bills, I think we have to have real clarity about where we are on the NBN and the need for both these bills.

Instead of creating a network that would become the digital backbone of our economy and drive social and economic opportunity, as Labor's proposal would have done, Australia is now stuck with a failed job—an internet network that doesn't seem to be able to connect for all Australians. Successive coalition governments have ruined, destroyed, Labor's vision for a world-class broadband system and they've imposed a 19th century, backward-looking model which relies on copper or a hotchpotch of technologies that is more expensive and does not, for a lot of Australians, work. The then communications minister, the member for Wentworth, promised Australians that his NBN would be delivered for $29.9 billion. It is now projected to cost $49 billion, and in these bills tonight we see a cost being passed on to customers. So what we now have is a broadband system that is in a state of disrepair and has blown its own budget.

So what do these two bills do? The first provides certainty that all premises in Australia will continue to access high-speed broadband infrastructure beyond the NBN rollout. This will enable Labor's initial vision for universal access to stay somewhere on the horizon. Our support for this bill speaks to us not giving up on that vision, on that equity of access that we hold so dear. The other introduces a levy of $84 per year to the bills of up to 400,000 consumers and businesses on non-NBN networks, significantly regional communities. Labor will not be opposing this bill; however, I do have some major concerns about these bills and the way they unfairly target Australians who live in regional or rural areas.

We have to speak of the failure of the member for Wentworth, both as minister for telecommunications and as the Prime Minister. As the former telecommunications minister, the member for Wentworth promised Australians that every household and small business could have access to the NBN by the end of 2016. Well, check your watches—it's now May 2018. We've watched budgets come and go and we're here again for another budget and a large proportion of people living in my electorate and residents living around the country are still eagerly awaiting any internet connection, whether that be ADSL, or NBN, and whether that be wireless or satellite.

My community is one of Australia's largest growth areas. There are homes being built and their owners are stranded without any internet access. There are businesses still waiting. There are businesses in my electorate running sophisticated logistic software who are paying top dollar for wireless access with no relief in sight. The Prime Minister's second-rate internet would be a dream for many residents who have moved into brand new homes and are forced to wait for months to be connected to even the most basic of internet services. In this regard, the statutory infrastructure provider regime will offer a degree of certainty or hope as we move beyond the initial rollout. But what we must remember is that it was Labor who was behind the principle that every Australian should have access to modern communications infrastructure. It was not the Liberals. It was not the Nationals. In essence, I'm convinced they don't believe in universal access or digital technology, because we're in the situation we find ourselves in now.

I will share with the Chamber the story of a local resident. We hear regularly from our local residents who cannot access the internet in their homes. We hear horror story after horror story. I'll share tonight the story of Sandeep Singh, one of many local residents who have contacted my office. He told the story of how he had moved into his home over 11 months ago and yet still had no internet connection to his home. He explained that there are no ports available for ADSL1 or ADSL2 in the area, so he is unable to connect to even the most basic access. The NBN rollout is not expected in the area where he's purchased his home until 2019, and this has very real consequences for Mr Singh, who is forced to make do with using expensive mobile data as a substitute. I don't have to explain to Australian families living without access to the NBN what that means. It means no access for kids' homework. It means no uploads or downloads for work. It means all trying to work off one little phone. That's what it means in reality in my community.

By way of an example of unaffordable costs, Mr Singh is currently on a mobile phone plan that provides 28 gigabytes of data per month at a cost of $85. Further to the financial costs, which are eating into the family budget, he and his family are unable to enjoy the advantages of having a normal internet service, something that very fortunate people—those who got Labor's initial NBN—have. If he goes to dinner at their houses, he's in for a shock. This is not good enough. We know 28 gigabytes doesn't go far on a mobile device, particularly if it's servicing an entire family. The government's NBN is a mess, and consumers like Mr Singh are being made to suffer.

This is the 21st century, in a world where everything is online. And, when I say 'everything', I mean everything. You can't access government support without going online. You can't apply for a job without going online. And more and more of our life is going online as we speak. So this is a real equity issue. The NBN that this government is attempting to deliver is second rate, slower and more expensive than what was promised. This government NBN is a travesty. It is people like Mr Singh and the hundreds of others in my electorate who have shared their pain about life without high-speed internet who have driven me and all my Labor colleagues to fight for Labor's initial vision of universal access. The digital divide in my community is alive and well, and it is faced both by families and by businesses. This drives us to pursue universal access. This is why we support the statutory infrastructure provider scheme—because it will keep that hope alive.

Another area that's been fairly criticised of late is the $82. We will support that, but we want it known that it is a failure of the government that it needs to be put in place in the first place.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Lalor, would you like to continue? There's a problem with the clocks. You've got about five or six minutes.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I looked up and went 'time's gone'. Nine more minutes? Nine or six?

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's probably closer to eight.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's go for eight. I've got lots to say. An area that's been getting a lot of coverage lately has been the number of complaints about the NBN, and not just the complaints to members' offices. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has reported that complaints have increased by 168 per cent. To put that into perspective, that is four times the level of complaints about the finance and banking industry, about which, through the royal commission, obviously, we're hearing disturbing stories of rorts and rip-offs—four times the number of complaints about the banking and finance sector.

What is more concerning about this bill in particular is that a high proportion of these complaints are coming from regional Australia. In terms of the second bill, residents in regional Australia, who are already experiencing an unsatisfactory service, will be hit with this new levy. This is just unfair. The Prime Minister and his government are responsible for this mess, and now Australians are being forced to suffer. Regional Australians are paying for it through a lack of service, as reflected in the complaints, and now through an $84 a year cost to those families.

A CHOICE survey reported that 60 per cent of people on the NBN had issues in the last six months; 44 per cent of these issues were related to very slow speeds and 31 per cent mentioned problems connecting to the NBN. This is alarming. Yet we don't seem to see the coalition doing anything productive about the issues that they have created. We have consumers, such as Mr Singh, with no internet for nearly a year, while the coalition continues to sing the praises of their copper failure. It is just not good enough from this government.

The Regional Broadband Scheme levy is what we're looking to introduce in this bill this evening. Schedule 4 of the bill proposes the introduction of the NBN levy. It is no surprise that in the week of the federal budget the Turnbull government is seeking to introduce a new tax—a broadband tax this time! I am reminded, at my age, of what we used to call the television licence but, this time, only people in regional areas will pay their telecommunications licence. The levy is designed to extend high-speed broadband to unprofitable areas which, under Labor, would have been funded through a universal wholesale pricing regime. As the member for Greenway, Michelle Rowland, said: 'This levy is expected to add $84 to the annual broadband bill for homes and businesses of non-NBN networks.' Schedule 4 of the bill proposes to apply a new broadband tax, really, of $7.10 per month that would apply to services on non-NBN networks. This charge is due to increase to $7.80 per month by 2021. The fact of the matter is: this levy is a direct consequence of the repeated failures of this government. Extending high-speed broadband to remote and regional Australia was in Labor's initial plan, and this government has failed to deliver it.

Labor understands that extending this infrastructure to unprofitable areas would require a universal wholesale pricing regime. This would mean that the NBN users in the city would help to cross-subsidise higher cost services in the regions. But this bill seeks to supplement the internal cross-subsidy with the new tax—a tax that will hit people living in regional and remote Australia. So I join the member for Greenway in calling on the Prime Minister to explain why the government is so adamant on giving the top end of town an $80 billion handout in the form of tax cuts while introducing an $84 annual fee to regional Australians for their access on non-NBN networks.

This bill reflects this government's lax work on the NBN. It reflects their mismanagement of the processes. It means that this government is passing on the cost to regional consumers rather than fixing the funding issues themselves. This cost is the responsibility of this government. Labor will support the bill but remind the House that this is a sorry tale for which the member for Wentworth, as minister and as Prime Minister, is wholly responsible.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Richmond. We're manually timing, so go to about seven minutes past.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I also rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017 in conjunction with the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017. I do support the amendments moved by the member for Greenway.

My focus is very much upon regional Australia. It was very disappointing that last night in the budget there was no provision to improve NBN services for those thousands of people in regional Australia who are stuck on this government's second-rate NBN. As I often say in this place, National Party choices hurt, and the one thing that really does hurt them is the absolute debacle that is the NBN.

I'll have a bit of a look at the history of the NBN first. In 2009, we announced our vision for a national broadband network to provide all Australians with access to high-speed internet. This great revolution, digital infrastructure, would lay the groundwork for universal economic and social opportunity into the future. Of course, it would be achieved by building an ultra-fast fibre-to-the-premises network reaching 93 per cent of Australians, with the remainder to be covered through a mix of fixed wireless and satellite. The NBN was envisaged as a wholesale-only entity, tasked with establishing this network whilst remaining structurally separate from the retail providers. This would ensure more choices and lower prices by allowing competition to thrive whilst also guaranteeing that rural and regional areas were not left behind. This is not what the government has followed through with at all. In fact, it is a quite a debacle, and I'll detail some of that later on.

We do support the statutory infrastructure provider regime contained in this bill, as it represents a step towards the policy vision that we established almost a decade ago. This regime will codify universal broadband access into legislation and provide long-term certainty to regional consumers and stakeholders about obligations for the supply of broadband into the future. For similar reasons, Labor supports the amendments to the level-playing-field rule introduced by this bill. This rule was also part of our original policy vision, being introduced by us in 2011. It is aimed at ensuring that there's a level playing field with respect to competition in the fixed-line telecommunications market. Australian taxpayers have made a significant investment in the NBN, and it's important that regulatory settings ensure that there is a level playing field so that the value of this investment is not unfairly undermined.

The NBN was designed to implement uniform wholesale pricing between regional areas and cities to ensure wholesale access prices remain consistent across Australia. This is achieved through an internal cross-subsidy which uses profits from services in the city to fund those of the regions. This unique obligation to provide services in areas that may not be commercially viable distinguishes the NBN from the fixed-line broadband competitors. As a result, to ensure competitive neutrality, it is only fair that other companies seeking to provide high-speed broadband are subject to the same regulatory requirements as NBN Co.

The level-playing-field rules in parts 7 and 8 of the act were introduced by Labor and apply to superfast fixed-line networks servicing residential and small business customers. Part 7 requires operators of such networks to make their network available to access seekers—retail providers. Part 8 requires networks to be wholesale—that is, structurally separate. This bill introduces amendments to provide greater certainty about these arrangements and the scope for flexibility where the ACCC decides that that is appropriate. So Labor support the measures in this bill, as they represent a realisation of our policy vision for the NBN.

Sadly, these measures are really only a drop in the bucket when compared to the shambles that the Turnbull government has made of the NBN rollout—shambles that the government now wants consumers to pay for with its internet tax. Make no mistake: this is a Prime Minister's internet tax. He owns it, and it has come about due to his cost blowouts and incompetence. This new internet tax appears in schedule 4 of the bill. It proposes to apply a tax of $7.10 per month to services on the non-NBN network. This will increase to $7.80 by 2021. This new tax will add around $84 to the total of annual bills for up to 400,000 residential and business services on non-NBN networks.

So what do we have after five years of the Abbott-Turnbull government when it comes to the NBN? We have a project blowout of $20 billion and a second-rate NBN that is very slow, and now we've got a nice new big tax on top of that. What we have is a government that's totally out of touch, a government that gives an $80 billion tax cut to big business and banks and now wants to tax the use of the internet.

But that's not where the shambles end. Under Labor's plan, all new homes and greenfield estates in the fixed-line footprint would have been connected with modern optical fibre. In contrast, the current government's multi-technology mess will see Australia stuck in the past, with slow outdated copper wires being installed in new homes. This means that around 8,000 newly built premises per year will be compromised by old and outdated internet speeds instead of optic fibre. Unfortunately, the bill does nothing to address this issue. Copper wire will continue to be rolled out in new suburbs. It isn't good enough and people are extremely angry.

I hear about this all the time from locals. For example, Garry Richmond from Terranora agreed to me sharing his story—a story which is, sadly, too common. He was promised the NBN would solve the issues he was experiencing with his old ADSL2 connection; however, when the NBN was in introduced in his area in 2017, he was contacted and told that he, unlike his neighbours, would miss out. The NBN informed him that this was because copper was unable to carry the signal the required distance. However, to Garry's dismay, his neighbour's premises, over 100 metres further from the node, received an NBN connection without any trouble. He reported that this internet lottery continued throughout his local area, with many missing out, seemingly at random.

This inequity can be seen all over the North Coast. In fact, in Ballina, in my electorate, plans released by NBN Co have revealed that half the residents will be getting the superior fibre-to-the-curb technology while the rest will be stuck with the slower fibre to the node. When confronted by outraged local residents and councillors, NBN Co just threw up their hands and said that it was all just too hard and they simply couldn't modify their plans, because it just didn't suit and they couldn't do that within Ballina. However, they helpfully suggested that residents just pay for it themselves if they weren't happy with having slower speeds than their neighbours. How outrageous! It is unfair. Why should some people have to pay for what others are getting for free? We are seeing this arbitrary internet rollout right across the North Coast. It simply isn't good enough and the people of Ballina are quite rightly enraged by this situation. It is indeed a far cry from Labor's vision of the NBN delivering fast and reliable internet to every Australian, with a universal and future-proof fibre-to-the-premises standard. It is clear that this bill does nothing to address issues such as the one in areas like Ballina that I highlighted. This bill does nothing to address that issue. It does nothing to address this major concern.

There is indeed a lack of transparency and accountability for consumers and businesses who have been left behind by the NBN and potentially declared service class zero. This situation occurs when an operational decision is made by NBN Co that it would be too time consuming or resource intensive to connect a particular home to the NBN. This leaves the premises behind, without certainty, as the rollout just moves on to the next area. The consumers are not proactively informed, nor are they given a time frame in which they can expect to be connected. This is no minor issue. In fact, the number of service class zero premises has ballooned to nearly 300,000. It's estimated that one in 10 premises will go through this frustrating experience, and the total number could rise to half a million, which is outrageous.

We have also heard of many instances where schools and businesses have been impacted. If special circumstances warrant NBN prioritising the connection of a service class zero premises such as a school or hospital, the government should have the ability to direct NBN Co to treat that connection with priority. Where there is a shortcoming in identifying a priority connection, Labor has introduced an amendment to provide scope for the government to direct NBN Co to connect a particular premises when the company refuses to do so. That's vitally important to ensure that connection is happening in those areas. This is because we recognise that some issues just cannot be left unaddressed, and consumers do need to be treated better. That's currently not happening. The amendment would also require NBN Co to proactively inform households if their NBN connection is likely to be delayed for long periods. This would make sure people like Garry from Terranora, in the story I spoke about recently, at least informed when the NBN is unable to connect their premises, rather than forcing them to waste their time and energy chasing information they should already have. It is so frustrating for consumers when this happens.

Whilst this bill does represent some steps forward for the NBN, and we do acknowledge that, it does little to fix the broader issues that the coalition government have created—the absolute mess they've created. First of all, we've had major cost blowouts. We need to focus on that. The Prime Minister had promised that his NBN would be delivered for $29.5 billion. Instead, the NBN's cost has blown out to $49 billion—$6 billion more than Labor's original fibre-to-the-node plan that we put forward. What do we get for this massive budget blowout? What have we got for this government's blowout? We see fibre delivered to a mere 17 per cent of Australians as opposed to 93 per cent of the population dictated under Labor's original plan—a huge difference. We see consumer complaints going through the roof, with the 2015-16 report by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman reporting a 150 per cent increase in complaints about NBN faults. That is a huge increase. We see 62 per cent of consumers reporting slow speeds and unreliable services. Essentially, we have a system that is costing more and doing less.

It's not just consumers that aren't happy. The internet service providers are also up in arms about this nonsensical multitechnology mix. Nicholas Demos, the Managing Director of MyRepublic, contends, 'It's criminal what Australians have been offered in terms of speed.' And indeed it is. He does have a point. The Turnbull government's multitechnology mess means you have a technology that offers speeds of 50 megabits per second while your neighbour has a fibre connection that clocks in 100 megabits per second. The difference is outrageous. Just down the road in Terranora you have a consumer like Garry, who the NBN Co hasn't been able to deliver a basic connection to. How is it fair to have all those different standards there? It's an even greater slap in the face when you consider that providers like Google Fiber are already beginning to roll out gigabit speed internet in the US. Currently, for US$70 you can receive a thousand megabit internet speeds in select US cities. By comparison, in Australia, our average internet is 25.88 megabits per second—55th in the world behind Kenya and Kazakhstan. What if you wanted gigabit speeds in Australia? In Launceston, Australia's first gigabit city, the same service will set you back approximately a thousand dollars a month, courtesy of the NBN Co's wholesale pricing—just outrageous.

We have a government that's created a complete NBN mess right across the board. It is particularly obvious when you look to regional Australia. It is in regional Australia where we do, I quite proudly say, desperately need to have high-speed, effective internet services, for a whole range of reasons. We have our small businesses that need it to be able to connect to the world, we need it for our students, we need it in our schools and we need it in our universities. In areas like mine on the far north coast of New South Wales, we have a lot of creative industries flourishing, and of course they need a reliable and fast internet to be able to provide their services nationwide and to the world.

So, throughout Australia we need to have fast and effective NBN services, but the regions desperately need them. We especially need them for our students. They have a right to access those fast speeds and services. I think it's been one of the great failings of this government that they've failed to provide for the regions. And, as I said, National Party choices hurt. They hurt across the regions for a lot of reasons. They certainly hurt when the National Party prioritises the $80 billion in tax cuts for multinationals, big business and banks, yet they do nothing to improve the NBN services in the country. And that's something I hear about every day.

We, in Labor, will continue to fight for our vision of NBN and what it should be. We have suggested and put forward our amendments in relation to this. We know how good it should be, because we designed and built the initial NBN. We know what we want, and we won't settle for the second-rate NBN services that this government has been putting forward. Indeed, their costs are blowing out, their service is getting worse—it just seems to lurch from one debacle to another. As I said, in places like Ballina, it has caused a huge amount of distress. There they are, being provided with totally different circumstances, creating a massive degree of uncertainty and anger within the community. This is wholly and solely the government's doing, and there's no capacity at all to resolve it. We want to see that change. We want to see the services improve. We want to see greater transparency. People are not being told exactly what the services are that they can access. It is unfair, and it is particularly unfair for those of us in the regions.

I appeal to the government to look closely at regional Australia and the requirements that we have. It's disappointing—well, there were many disappointing things in the budget that we could run through, but, when talking about the NBN, one of those is the lack of any sort of investment in last night's budget that would improve those services for regional Australia. It is very desperate, and it is only that Labor had the true vision for it, and under this government we've just seen a blowout and a lack of services. So I certainly support Labor's amendments. I think they will go some way to getting some improvements, but we would like to see the government approach this and actually start fixing the NBN so that people can access these services.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Cyber Security and Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've spoken many, many times in this chamber about the experiences of my wonderful community here in Canberra with the rollout of the National Broadband Network under this government. I've shown that for many, particularly in the south-east corner of the electorate of Canberra—in Tuggeranong, Theodore, Calwell, Richardson and Macarthur—high-speed broadband is a pipedream, whether it's under an existing telecommunications provider or under the NBN.

For many Canberrans, the rollout of the NBN means that nothing will change. The majority of homes will continue to rely on unreliable, second-rate copper. The slow speeds that I've spoken about so many times in this chamber and in the House—that I've demonstrated time and again—will continue unabated. That is my major concern. These changes will not make anything better, because we will continue to rely on unreliable second-rate copper. Between 15 and 20 kilometres from this very Parliament House, in the nation's capital, in 2018, there are constituents of mine, members of my community, who are getting less than one megabit per second upload and download speeds. Less than one megabit per second—what does that actually mean? Apart from the fact that getting on the internet is an extremely excruciating and frustrating, tear-your-hair-out experience, it also means that members of my community, particularly in that south-east area of Tuggeranong, cannot do their homework from home. I have members of my community who have to go to their friend's house in another part of the electorate, or across the lake, to be able to do their homework. I have members in my community who can't set up and operate small businesses from home, because their internet service is so appalling. They have to go to the expense of hiring office space throughout Canberra to be able to get a decent internet connection so they can run a business. I have members of my community who have to stand on their garage roof to get reception. We're coming into an interesting cool patch; I think winter has finally arrived in the nation's capital. We have had a lovely kind of Indian summer, one would say, here in the last few weeks, but I think that, come tomorrow—and particularly on Friday, where we'll get a low of six and a top of seven—things are going to be interesting for that poor person standing on the roof of her garage trying to get internet connection.

I've raised these myriad concerns with the minister and let him know the issues faced by my community that are impeding their access to education, small business opportunities and what I call active citizenry. The constituents of my electorate are having their opportunities, choices and options in life impeded by this government's second-rate unreliable copper. The minister's response has been:

If they're on the NBN and not getting the speed we said you would then the fault's at their end—it's not with the NBN.

Or:

It must be the way the house is wired.

People who are financially strapped and can't afford to participate in the NBN's technology choice program are going to have to foot the bill to have the copper line to their house checked out, or to have the wiring in their house looked over or reconfigured. Goodbye to any personal income tax relief that this government is promising, particularly with recommendations like this!

It beggars belief, but there has been no acknowledgement of this from the other side. Hardly any of my colleagues on the other side have spoken about the actual experiences of people in their communities dealing with the NBN, other telecommunications providers, second-rate unreliable copper, and frustration with the rollout. Much of Canberra wasn't even on the rollout map until this time last year. When we finally got on the rollout map—hurrah! We were so much looking forward to it—we just kept getting moved to the right. The rollout that was meant to start this year has been moved to next year. The rollout that was meant to start last year has been moved into 2020. It is a case of 'be careful what you wish for'. There has been not a peep from my colleagues on the other side of the chamber about the experiences of people in their communities. How many people in their communities are in the same position as mine? I would say thousands, if not tens of thousands. I cannot believe that it has all been happy days for their constituents. Many Canberrans feel nothing but despair with the current rollout, the lack of transparency, the continued delays and the non-answers to questions.

It's for these reasons that I welcome the opportunity to speak about these two bills, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017 and the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017, and support Labor's proposed amendment. These bills work in conjunction with each other to set the scene for Australia's broadband future. Together the bills provide legislative certainty that all premises in Australia can access high-speed broadband infrastructure beyond the current NBN rollout. The current telecommunications regulatory framework established the USO, which ensured all Australians had access to a standard telephone service; yet, as technology evolves, more and more people are shifting away from having standard telephone services in their homes. How many people do you know who still use their landline? This means that the relevance of the USO is decreasing and something needs to be done to recognise the increasing reliance of Australians on internet connectivity.

Labor recognised this when it first designed its NBN policy, and the competition and consumer bill goes further and establishes a statutory infrastructure provider regime. It will ensure all Australian premises are guaranteed access to high-speed broadband through either NBN Co or an alternative infrastructure provider. The effect of this legislative change is that it will give certainty to customers about obligations for the supply of broadband beyond the initial NBN rollout. It is a level of certainty that consumers would have had with the original NBN rollout under Labor but were sorely missing until now. The bill enshrines in legislation a universal right to broadband access, a principle established by Labor when the NBN was first announced, a universal right that's been eroded over time by this government's inept management of the NBN rollout. It's taken those opposite many years to come to the party and to sign up to this principle, but in the end they had no choice. The Australian public gave them no choice. Labor is proud of having fought for this and proud of having reached this point. This is fundamentally about equality of opportunity in the digital age. It will ensure Australians can access high-speed broadband irrespective of where they live or work. But there remains much more to do. The certainty will need to be paid for.

Schedule 4 of this bill proposes to apply a new broadband tax of $7.10 per month to services on non-NBN networks. This charge is due to increase to $7.80 by 2021. These bills also introduce a telecommunications levy that will add $84 per year to the bills of up to 400,000 consumers and businesses on non-NBN networks. It's telling that in the week of the federal budget the Turnbull government is seeking to introduce a new broadband tax that is expected to raise nearly half a billion dollars over the next decade.

In 2009 the then Labor government decided to build an NBN that would extend universal coverage of broadband to regional and remote Australia, funded through a universal wholesale pricing regime. This meant that NBN users in the cities would help cross-subsidise high-cost services in the regions. There was no contemplation of having a universal wholesale pricing regime and a levy. It was one or the other, not both. Yet now the government wants to supplement the internal cross-subsidy with a new internet charge. So I ask: what has changed? The cost of fixed wireless and the satellite network has not changed. The cost is effectively what was forecast. The key change has been the abandonment of fibre on the pretext that Australia would get a much cheaper, albeit inferior, multi-technology mix. But, as we know, we haven't got that. We have a more expensive $49 billion multi-technology mix that costs more and does less.

This inferior multi-technology mix, according to NBN Co's own analysis, will cost $200 million per annum in steady state to maintain and operate, and generate $300 million less per annum in revenue relative to a fibre-to-the-premises network. That is a $500 million earnings gap. The copper NBN looks increasingly exposed to competition from 5G. This levy is the Prime Minister's internet tax. He owns it. It's come about as a result of his cost blowouts. It's come about because in 2013 he encouraged other companies to deploy networks and to compete directly against the NBN, with full knowledge that this would undercut the NBN business model.

In seeking to undermine the NBN business model, the Prime Minister was letting down regional Australia. He put his own interests above the public interest. Let this be a lesson for the Prime Minister. Again, be careful what you wish for. The irony is the Prime Minister now wants to tax Australians who are on these competing networks, networks he once encouraged. It is for the Prime Minister to explain why people on NBN fibre networks will eventually have to pay for his poor judgement and his failure in policy areas.

This levy will impact people in Canberra. It will impact people who are on iiNet's VDSL network. Labor believe that this levy is regrettable but we won't be opposing it outright. We are where we are, and ultimately it is the Prime Minister who owns this levy. It is his government that has left the economics of the NBN in a difficult state. Evidence about the NBN is in. Complaints to the TIO have increased by 160 per cent. That is four times the level of complaints about the finance and banking industry. The decision to use mainly copper technology for the fixed-line NBN being rolled out means a second-rate service.

In September 2017 the New South Wales Business Chamber published a survey of small business experiences. Small businesses reported that switching to the NBN was costing them an average of $9,000—this is small business—through delays, disruptions and loss of sales. Of great concern, 43 per cent of the 850 businesses surveyed by the New South Wales Business Chamber reported either being dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the NBN. This is nearly three times the 15 per cent dissatisfaction rate claimed by the government. They're claiming 15 per cent, yet it's 43 per cent. A spokesman said that the Business Chamber was 'stunned by the responses'. This comes on the back of COSBOA saying:

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.

People in my community are reporting little difference from the speeds they were getting on ADSL—and the response from the minister to these complaints? It was:

It's all about co-existence. It will be better when everyone has moved to NBN.

Will it, Minister?

The Department of Communications and the Arts confirmed that there is no planned upgrade path for the copper NBN. They told the Joint Standing Committee on the NBN:

As NBN has previously outlined, there is no current plan to upgrade specific sections of the network.

The failure of the copper NBN to deliver adequate speeds and reliability has undermined the whole business case for the NBN—and the minister's response? It was:

… that's an issue for the retail service providers. They haven't paid enough of the CVC charge.

Ultimately, it is the Prime Minister who owns this levy that the government is trying to introduce this week. It is up to him to explain why the government wants to give big business an $80 billion tax cut while introducing a new telecommunications charge that will add $84 to the annual broadband bill of impacted households on non-NBN networks.

Australians know that, when it comes to broadband, only Labor will be there to consistently deliver on their behalf. But much more needs to be done in this sector.

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor created the NBN. Labor put forward a visionary plan to make sure that Australia could come into the 21st century—commence the 21st century, really—with a proper broadband network that would provide the high-speed internet connectivity across our entire country that Australians deserved and required to be able to participate in the global economy and the global information superhighway, as we used to call it in the 1990s. But, unfortunately, under the period of this government we've seen that plan ripped up, destroyed, mangled, bastardised and changed, such that it is now almost completely unrecognisable from that which Labor put forward so many years ago. That is really quite sad, because it could have been so good. But instead it has been terrible—quite frankly, terrible.

But there is something to be said for these bills, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017 and the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017, and the need for them. The bills are intended to promote competition, to improve access to broadband services for all Australians—especially those in regional, rural and remote areas. This will be done through a few key measures. There will be the introduction of a funding mechanism for regional broadband services, which will help underwrite the costs of NBN Co providing broadband services into regional areas, particularly through fixed wireless and satellite networks. There will be the introduction of a statutory infrastructure provider regime and amendments to the super-fast network rules to clarify the wholesale-only rules applying to high-speed broadband networks. This is because the NBN was established as a wholesale-only structure. It was separated from the retailers so that we could have competition over the top of the wholesale broadband network. It's interesting to think back. If the Howard government hadn't gone on to sell the network that stood behind Telstra, in the first place, we wouldn't have had to create a whole new network to try and ensure that Australians have a broadband network.

As I mentioned at the outset, Labor's plan for the NBN in 2009 was designed to provide all Australians with access to high-speed broadband across the country. It would have seen 93 per cent of Australian homes having access to fibre to the premises, the superior NBN technology. The remainder would have had combined fixed wireless and satellite. This technology had the power to drive innovation, commerce and connectivity. In fact, it had the power to drive the things that we haven't even thought of today. What we have consistently heard from this government is how NBN will provide, under the government's plans, a sufficiency of connectivity and speeds to deliver on four people watching Netflix. That's great. But four people won't be watching Netflix in 20 years time. If you think about the longevity of the copper network that we've had up to this point, it seems a bit crazy to design a network that will only provide connectivity for now as opposed to 50 years time.

Critically, this bill will introduce a new statutory infrastructure provider regime, which will provide industry and consumers with certainty that all premises in Australia will have access to infrastructure that supports the delivery of these super-fast broadband services. The arrangements will require NBN Co to connect premises to its network and supply the wholesale broadband services of phone and internet services. During the rollout of NBN, NBN Co will have these obligations in all areas where it's supplying carriage services. After the rollout is complete, NBN will become the default statutory infrastructure provider. In some new developments it may be the case that other carriers will be able to fulfil this role—for example, where a carrier is the sole provider of infrastructure in a new development. The obligation also provides wholesale access to broadband infrastructure for retail service providers so they can service their retail customers.

In good news for consumers, one primary obligation of the SIP will be to offer a wholesale broadband service supporting peak speeds of at least 25 megabits download and five megabits upload, regardless of location. This will ensure that all Australians, regardless of where they live, will be able to order a high-speed broadband service. The SIPs must also supply wholesale services to retail providers that can be used to support voice calls on fixed line and fixed wireless. This is a welcome development for consumers, industries and all stakeholders in this area.

I now want to turn my attention to the service class 0 issue. Under Labor, all new homes and greenfield estates in the fixed-line footprint would have been connected with optical fibre. Yet under the coalition the multitechnology mess has seen the NBN become one of the largest global buyers of copper wire in the world, using an outdated technology and one that is becoming more and more expensive to use. This bill does nothing to reduce the chaos of the coalition's NBN network rollout, and it does nothing to address the lack of transparency and accountability for consumers and businesses who find themselves declared a service class 0.

A number of my constituents will be aware of this term. It's when your area comes into the NBN, like a large section of the electorate of Burt, but, for whatever reason—usually poor copper-wire service connections or being slightly too far from the pit or some other part of the network design—a premises is unable to connect to the network. You usually don't know that you are a service-class-0 home or business until your ADSL connection has been switched off and you have made multiple attempts to get your home connected. This is because, of course, according to all of the maps that you might look at, you should be in an area that can be connected to the NBN.

NBN Co and the providers are rarely able to tell these residents when this situation will be resolved. Service class 0 premises comes into existence when NBN Co has unilaterally made an operational decision that it would too resource intensive or time consuming to connect a particular home to the NBN when the NBN is rolled out in that area. The occupier of the premises, whether they be a home or a business, are left behind without certainty as the NBN moves on to its rollout in the next area. The consumer is not proactively informed; nor are they given a time frame in which they can expect to be connected. This leaves consumers angry and confused about the complete lack of transparency or any certainty. The number of service class 0 premises has now exploded to nearly 300,000 homes and businesses. It is estimated that this number may go as high as half-a-million premises, meaning roughly one in 10 consumers will be affected. These consumers include homes, businesses, churches, not-for-profit organisations and schools—all at a time when we're trying to promote STEM education and the use of technology.

The government needs to take a transparent and responsible approach to this. Labor has introduced an amendment that would provide scope for the government to direct NBN Co to connect particular premises during rollout where the company refuses to do so for these operational reasons. It would require them to proactively notify households if their connection is expected to be delayed for long periods. This is something that the government really should have done long ago. It is completely unfair that the government leaves these people stranded without any hope of connection, or waiting an indefinite period of time. I've had constituents approach me and my office about this very issue, saying that they have bought in an area that is on the NBN Co map and are looking forward to getting the NBN, because it is rolled out in that area of my electorate of Burt. They are setting up a small home business and then finding, lo and behold, that the NBN actually stops about 200 metres from their home on that street. Thanks very much; that's really helpful, government! In 2013 Malcolm Turnbull said:

We will complete the NBN, we will ensure all Australians have very fast broadband and we will do it sooner, cheaper and hence more affordably than the Labor government can.

He planned on doing this by scrapping the full fibre-to-the-premises broadband rollout and instead upgrading and repurposing existing infrastructure—that would be that old copper network that's nearly 100 years old in some places. While the coalition's multi-technology mix—or multi-technology mess, as it's usually referred to—was promoted as being able to deliver faster and cheaper broadband, for many customers this has proved to be not the case at all. It is a second-rate network. Quite frankly, if you had left the rollout of the telegraph to this government, we would have been lucky to get that. They would've told us that the carrier pigeon would be sufficient.

We are now where we are. Instead of taking fibre to 93 per cent of the population, the coalition NBN will take fibre to 17 per cent of the population. Consumer complaints are soaring, with a 2015-16 report from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman saying that there had been a 150 per cent increase in complaints about NBN faults. It would appear that getting NBN service is not exactly the most fun experience for people who are supposed to be getting a superior service by moving their internet connection to the NBN. Indeed, many of the people who live in my community have raised with me and my office this concern: 'I have moved to the NBN and it's slower; can I go back?' There is no going back from here, unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen; the government has saddled us with this problem for a very long time to come.

Let's look at the reforms being proposed. One of the aspects of this package is to promote competition by levelling the playing field. Australian taxpayers have made a significant investment in NBN, and seemingly a growing one. It's important that regulatory settings ensure that there is a level playing field, so that the value of that investment is not unfairly undermined. Current network rules require a fixed-line network servicing residential and small business customers to supply a wholesale bitstream service to access-seekers and operators on a wholesale-only basis—that is, there needs to be a structural separation between retailers and wholesalers. There are a number of exceptions to these rules, such as high-speed networks built prior to 2011. The key changes to the rules are that the bill will remove regulation of networks servicing small business customers, which will enable these providers to benefit from greater competition in the market. They will allow the ACCC to exempt small start-up networks, operators of fewer than 2,000 residential customers on fixed-line networks. These reforms would also effectively allow network carriers, other than Telstra and NBN, to be vertically integrated—that is, to operate both wholesale and retail businesses on a functionally separated basis, subject, of course, to ACCC approval.

Finally, all services supplied on wholesale-only and functionally separated networks will be subject to clear non-discrimination obligations. The obligation for NBN to provide broadband in areas that would otherwise not be commercial to service is unique to NBN and is not shared by its fixed-line broadband competitors. Consumers will expect that companies seeking to provide high-speed broadband are subject to the same regulatory requirements as NBN to ensure that there is competitive neutrality. So this bill introduces an amendment to provide greater certainty about these arrangements, and scope and flexibility, where the ACCC decides that it's appropriate, and Labor supports these measures to ensure that this occurs.

In relation to that, I think it is important that we have some time to reflect upon some of the issues that we saw upon the rollout of ADSL in the first place. For my sins, I was working in the internet industry at the time when ADSL was introduced. Of course, we had the situation where Telstra, having control of all of the exchanges—being a wholesale provider and a retail provider of ADSL connectivity—was also required to maintain some degree of functional separation of its networks so that retailers could buy a wholesale service off Telstra. I'm pretty sure if you go and ask some of the providers from that time—iiNet would be a classic example—they would say that there were definitely some holes in the way in which that operated. I hope that some of the issues that arose at that time, nearly 20 years ago now, have been addressed by the way in which it is proposed the rules be amended by this bill, and going forward, to ensure we don't have same issues arise again and that we do have a proper, competitive space in this field. With all that, Labor does support the measures in the bill but, at the end of the day, it doesn't change the fact that, really, the NBN is a complete 'fraudband' network.

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member. Before I call the next speaker, I would just point out to those who may be watching or listening outside the parliament that we do have an issue with the electronic clock this evening, so we are manually time-keeping. We're doing it old school this afternoon. Each speaker will have 15 minutes, and we'll do our best to alert speakers when their time is expiring.

Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Gee. I am most grateful for your assistance, particularly with respect to the manual time-keeping. As we know, many of us have difficulty in keeping to time, and I will ensure, as best I can, that I keep to the time limit imposed.

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Broadband Network was intended to provide all Australians with universal access to high-speed broadband. I'm speaking not just to the two pieces of legislation that are before the House today but also to amendments moved by the shadow minister. It's really important for us to consider the full scope of the amendments that are proposed in the second reading debate. In particular, it's important to sheet home to the Prime Minister responsibility for the issues raised in the amendment. The full extent of the condemnation of this house should fall on the Prime Minister for his actions as the then minister responsible for the National Broadband Network in creating a network, as the amendment sets out, which has cost more to deploy, delivers slower speeds, will cost more to maintain, will require expensive upgrades in the future and, most tellingly, to my mind, will generate less revenue—that is, it exposes the NBN Co to additional commercial risk.

Like the previous speaker, I've had some experience in this area as a lawyer advising people in this technology, extending back in the days when—and it's quite sad for me to say this—a link between my Launceston office and my Hobart office ran at the breathtaking speed of 300 bits per second. That's not megabits; it's 300 bits per second. Of course, in those days you didn't pay $49.95 for a connection between two communication devices; you paid thousands of dollars per month.

The NBN network was designed to provide a really important piece of national infrastructure. It was designed to provide a digital backbone based on fibre technology in order to drive not just economic opportunity but also social opportunity wherever one lived—that is, whether the user lived within one of our major cities or within regional Australia. I'll talk about regional Australia later in my address. The fibre-to-the-premises network was intended, as originally envisioned by Labor, to extend to 93 per cent of the country, with the remaining seven per cent to be served through a combination of fixed wireless and satellite technology as the circumstances and professional advice would dictate. The network would also facilitate retail competition, as the NBN was established to operate as a wholesale service provider, structurally separated from retailers so that retail competition would provide for lower prices, consumer choice and better outcomes for consumers and small businesses.

I mentioned earlier that the NBN was intended to deliver particular outcomes not just for the major cities within Australia but also for regional Australia. Nowhere in Australia is this vision better demonstrated than through the efforts of the Tasmanian retail service provider Launtel, which has delivered Australia's first affordable gigabit commercial connections and domestic connections, which are between two and five times faster than those available even in the central business district of major cities. Launtel's innovation is built on the fibre-to-the-premises model championed originally by Labor. This is because fibre technology enables innovative and progressive retailers to leverage off the fibre backbone to deliver relatively cheap and amazingly fast internet experiences. This is actually an internet experience which exceeds the specifications set down by NBN Co. It demonstrates the potential of the wholesale network. NBN Co does not, at present, offer the sorts of speeds that this retail service provider is providing. Notwithstanding that, they've provided an innovative commercial solution which offers up to 1,000 megabits per second for not only commercial customers but also residential customers.

Contrast this situation with that of some constituents of mine, the Goftons, who live in the north-east of my electorate on their family dairy farm. The family dairy farm lies just six kilometres from Scottsdale, which was one of the first sites in Australia to receive fibre to the premises. The Goftons wanted to improve productivity on their farm. This is a common story. Not many of us in this place appreciate that modern agricultural production requires the use of advanced technology. So they upgraded technology. Kate Gofton contacted me in February last year and indicated that the internet was absolutely critical to the everyday running of their business. She indicated that she'd invested a significant amount of money in infrastructure to overcome the particular issues that she had experienced. Their existing service is unreliable, and they have been regularly forced to pay significantly more for minimal amounts of data. She has to drive the six kilometres into Scottsdale to use the internet in Scottsdale to pay employees and make phone calls for the business.

This example is just one of the stark contrasts between businesses in my electorate suffering under the current government's incompetence in delivering services to rural communities in a timely manner. So, when we talk about the digital divide, it is apparent even within electorates like my electorate of Bass, where you have some consumers and some retail users enjoying absolutely fantastically fast internet experiences, where they can download gigabytes of data within minutes, and, in contrast to that, somebody who relies upon the internet for their business being required to effectively move their business to an adjacent town just to pay their employees.

The statutory infrastructure regime, or the SIP, contained in this bill implements in legislation Labor's original vision of universal access—a vision that was outlined almost a decade ago. This is a welcome development in order to provide certainty to stakeholders, consumers and, importantly, industry. As I said earlier, Labor's vision extended to fibre to the premises being used for all new homes and greenfield estates in the fixed-line footprint. Disappointingly—indeed, some could say disgracefully—this government, in the pursuit of what it calls a multi-technology mix, but which can properly be described as a multi-technology mess, has facilitated the rollout of new copper into new suburbs, despite the fact that this copper cannot deliver the fast speeds already available for retailers like Launtel.

Any question about universal standards of service needs to address the technology mix as a question of principle. This government defines superfast broadband as a service nominally providing 25 megabits per second or more. This definition preserves the government's technology-agnostic approach and would permit the extension of existing fibre-to-the-node networks to newly constructed homes beyond the term of this parliament. Any outcome, however unlikely to be facilitated, is of serious concern to Labor, as it is inconsistent with Labor's policy of fibre to the premises as the preferred approach, with fibre to the kerb being the minimum approach. This bill does nothing to address the issue that is likely to entrench the digital divide that I referred to earlier between those who are fortunate enough to have fibre to the premises and those who are not. I'm fortunate enough to have fibre to the premises at home and, being required to use remote technology in order to access the internet, not just in this place, I sometimes find that, even at 100 megabits per second, what you're seeking to achieve can be constrained.

The NBN rollout demonstrates time and time again the failure in policy of the Turnbull government. The Turnbull NBN, as contemplated by this amendment, costs more and is less effective. The Prime Minister initially promised that his version of the NBN would be delivered for $29.5 billion. The cost has blown out to $49 billion, and I understand from material released recently that it even exceeds that. The Prime Minister promised that every household and small business would have access to the NBN by the end of 2016. Let's test that proposition. How many were left unconnected—that is, not connected to the NBN—as at the end of 2016? It's not a trivial number: seven million homes were left without access to the internet at the end of 2016. There are still more than 5.5 million homes—again, 2½ years after that time—waiting for the present government's deficient NBN.

Instead of taking fibre to 93 per cent of the population, the multi-technology mess will take fibre to only 17 per cent of the population. The balance of the Australian population will not and cannot have access to the innovative services already available from retailers like Launtel—again perpetuating this significant digital divide based upon the technology that the Prime Minister said previously was good enough for ordinary Australians. Mind you, this Prime Minister elected to have a fibre connection for his own residence.

At the same time, consumer complaints are soaring. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman in its 2015-16 report highlighted a 150 per cent increase in complaints about NBN faults. A recent Choice survey reported that 62 per cent of Australians are experiencing slow speeds and unreliable services. The level-playing-field rules are designed, nevertheless, to provide protection for NBN Co to ensure that its significant investment in wholesale infrastructure is not unfairly undermined. This is the commercial risk that I referred to earlier, in my opening comments. The NBN was designed to utilise uniform wholesale pricing to ensure that wholesale access for regional Australia was the same as for the cities. In this respect, the NBN is underpinned by an internal cross-subsidy that uses profits from services in the city to fund services in the region. The service obligation expressly contemplates that NBN Co will provide broadband in areas where it would not be commercial to provide those services. This obligation is unique to NBN Co and is not shared by any of its broadband competitors.

Public policy should ensure that companies seeking to provide high-speed broadband are broadly subject to the same regulatory requirements as NBN Co so as to ensure competitive neutrality. The level-playing-field rules in parts 7 and 8 of the Telecommunications Act date back to 2011. They apply to superfast fixed-line networks that service residential and small-business customers. Part 7 of the act requires operators of these networks to make their networks available to access seekers—that is, retail service providers. In many respects the amendments proposed by this legislation that are necessary in order to impose a charge or levy upon competing networks are a product of this Prime Minister encouraging the construction of a competing network. Obviously, to protect the structural separation of the network, it's important that we protect NBN Co's monopoly as a wholesale service provider. So Labor will support the bill. Thank you.

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

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017 and the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017. These bills, which work in conjunction with each other, do two key things: legislate certainty that all premises in Australia can access high-speed broadband infrastructure after the NBN rollout, and introduce a telecommunications levy that will add $84 per year to the bills of up to 400,000 consumers and businesses on non-NBN networks.

Labor will not be opposing these bills. Labor support legislating a universal right to broadband access, as this was the principle we first established when the NBN was announced. Putting the arrangements in legislation will provide certainty beyond the NBN rollout. Labor supports the establishment of a statutory infrastructure provider regime as outlined in schedule 3 of this bill. The statutory infrastructure provider regime will offer certainty that, as we move beyond the initial NBN rollout, every Australian home and small business can get access to a high-speed broadband connection. This would put in legislation an important reform that was initiated by Labor almost a decade ago and implemented through a statement of expectations issued to the NBN board. The statement of expectations required the company to make the NBN accessible to all Australians.

After more than a decade, John Howard had left Australia a broadband backwater. Little has been done under this government. It took those opposite many years to sign up to Labor's principle, but in the end the Australian public gave them no choice. Labor is proud of having fought and reached this point. It's fundamentally about fairness in the digital age. It will ensure that Australians can access high-speed broadband irrespective of where they live, study or work. But there is so much more to do.

Schedule 4 of this bill proposes to apply a new broadband tax of $7.10 per month, which would apply to services on non-NBN networks. This charge is due to increase to $7.80 by 2021. This is Turnbull's internet tax. He owns it. It has come about due to his cost blowouts. The levy will impact the non-NBN networks in the ACT, regional Victoria, the fibre-to-the-basement network in inner city areas and fibre networks in new estates. It is telling that, in the week of the federal budget, the Turnbull government is seeking to introduce a new broadband tax, which is expected to raise nearly half a billion dollars over the next decade. The government's internet tax is expected to add $84 to the annual bill of up to 400,000 residential and businesses services on non-NBN networks. Labor consider this regrettable, but we won't be opposing it. The economics of the NBN are now precarious. It is also important for NBN to be able to compete on a level playing field. An effect of this levy is that it will help to achieve that.

In 2009, the then Labor government decided to build a national broadband network that would extend universal coverage of broadband to regional and remote Australia. This was an important initiative, a true Labor reform and one we are proud of. This decision to extend high-speed broadband across Australia was funded through a universal wholesale pricing regime. This meant that NBN users in the cities would help cross-subsidise higher cost areas in the regions, like my electorate on the Central Coast of New South Wales. It was not part of our plan that there would be a universal wholesale pricing regime and a levy. It was one or the other; it wasn't both. Yet now the government wants to supplement the internal cross-subsidy with a new internet tax. What's changed? The cost of fixed wireless and satellite networks hasn't changed, the cost of effectively what was forecast. The key change has been the abandonment of fibre on the pretext that Australia would get a much cheaper—but, we know, inferior—multi-technology mix. We haven't. What we have is a more expensive, $49 billion multi-technology mix that costs more and does less and that generates $300 million less per annum in revenue relative to a fibre-to-the-premises network. This has created a problem the government now wants to fix with a new tax.

The coalition's 2013 election commitment to deliver the NBN for $29.5 billion and complete it by 2016 was a hoax. The cost of the NBN project increased from $29.5 billion to $41 billion in late 2013. By August 2015, it had increased again by a further $8 billion, bringing the cost of the NBN rollout to $49 billion, with a completion date of 2020—$20 billion over budget and four years behind what the Prime Minister promised. Leaks reveal the cost of remediating copper has increased tenfold to over $600 million. In 2016, the cost of deploying the HFC network again increased, by another $2 billion, as problems began to mount. But there are also challenges on the revenue side. In 2017, retail service providers were called out for selling speed plans the copper NBN could not and did not deliver. Nearly one in two customers on the copper NBN network who were paying for the top speeds had their speeds downgraded and were compensated as a result. It was later reported that one in three homes on copper cannot achieve 50 megabits per second and three in four cannot achieve 100 megabits per second.

Also, the Senate learned that no funding has been set aside in the government's NBN business case out to 2040 to upgrade its copper footprint. Put another way, the already shaky economics of the NBN rely on the assumption that Australians won't need their copper network upgraded for at least another 23 years. So, under this Prime Minister, we have an inferior NBN that cost $4 billion more for taxpayers to build, delivers slower speeds, is less reliable, costs more to maintain, is more exposed to competition from wireless, costs more to upgrade and generates less revenue for those willing to pay. It's crap!

Many Australians remain frustrated with their experiences on the NBN. My constituents continually raise these issues with me. How many NBN complaints do you think have come to one electoral office—100, 200, 300 or 400? To date, 490 people in my electorate have contacted my office to complain about the NBN. Why? Because of slow speeds, dropouts and unreliable services. They make appointments with technicians only to find that no-one turns up. Their issues and complaints are being buck passed, without accountability, between the NBN and the provider and back to the NBN.

I could stand here until the chamber adjourns and would have mentioned only a few. But let's make a start. Let's kick off with the 'You're not on the map' NBN problem. Vicky is a beauty therapist in Bateau Bay. She has been trying for several months to get her business connected to the NBN. She tried several providers but each told her she could not be connected because her address could not be found on the NBN system. When she contacted NBN Co to try to sort it out they referred her to Optus. Optus looked into it—and guess what? They referred her back to NBN Co. And so it goes on. What about the 'It's somebody else's problem' NBN complaint?

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19 :16