Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the last couple of years we've been working from home and we've been learning from home. To be able to do this we need decent, reliable, good internet. But for too many of my constituents decent, reliable, good internet is still a dream. In recent weeks my office has been working with residents from several neighbouring homes on the urban edge of Eltham who've experienced significant issues with their NBN service for months. These properties currently only receive fibre-to-the-node service, and residents have spent countless hours on the phone, sending emails or waiting for technicians to turn up to try to resolve the problems, only to be left with bandaid fixes that mean that they have to do the whole thing all over again. I know this isn't a unique experience in any way, but it just should not be the case. One of these residents works in the health sector. They've had to contend with constant internet dropouts, and this has affected their ability to manage and access their workplace's IT systems and to be able to review patient test results and management plans. In the middle of a pandemic this is what is happening to healthcare workers in my community. Another reports woeful service with repeated outages and slow speeds. They've had to turn off notifications about the service dropping out because it happens so often. As with many of these cases that come to my office, NBN Co and service providers end up in a finger-pointing exercise. No-one's actually fixing the problem, and my constituents are left frustrated because they just want a decent internet service that works properly.

I am hearing loud and clear from people in Jagajaga that we need a better NBN so that we have access to the reliable service that we should have in a developed country and when we are relying on using this technology from our homes. And that is why I am so excited by last week's announcement of Labor's NBN plan from Anthony Albanese and Michelle Rowland. It's a critically important one for my community as the plan will enable full fibre access to one and a half million homes that are currently in the fibre-to-the-node footprint. Households in this footprint who want an NBN speed greater than the copper wire can deliver will be able to choose to have fibre connected to their premises at no cost under Labor's plan. Nearly seven in eight premises in the fibre-to-the-node footprint will have full fibre access by 2025. Labor's plan will keep the NBN in public ownership so that prices remain affordable and improvements to the network can be made and will continue to be made. It's a plan that's focused on delivering great access and opportunity to people who know they need and want a better service to do all those daily things that we do from our homes. The minister for communications suggested just last week that Labor's plan was more wasteful government spending, but this isn't a waste. Fixing our NBN is fixing an essential service. It is a fix that Labor will make. It is one that this government can't achieve.