Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the National Broadband Network (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024, as introduced by the fabulous Minister for Communications. This bill is all about safeguarding the NBN and ensuring its future and ongoing benefits for all Australians. The Albanese Labor government committed to delivering accessible internet for all Australians, and this bill supports that.

I want to start by saying that the NBN is a fantastic Labor initiative. It was conceived under former prime minister Kevin Rudd. It came about because Labor fundamentally believed that every Australian—not just those who live in the cities or large regional centres but every Australian—should have high-speed, high-quality access to internet services.

The NBN helps Australians in so many ways—in education, in health, in recreation and, very importantly, in business. The Menzies party of small business is now, let's be honest, the party of small minds. Labor understands how the NBN expands education, health, recreation and business, but those opposite do not. Labor led the charge, championing the use of modern fibre-optic technology for better broadband connections. Think of all the benefits that come, when it comes to education, health, recreation and business, because of the modern internet.

Those opposite obviously took a different view. They thought that the existing copper networks—the stuff that was rolled out when horses and buggies were on our roads—that were already unsuitable and unreliable for Australia's needs, would be perfect for the NBN.

It is a tale of two Tonys. I've mentioned one: a farmer called Tony Windsor—an Independent, and a former National Party MP at the state and federal level, who saw the benefits that would come to the bush in his sector, and that's one of the reasons that he chose, for the 43rd Parliament, the Gillard government. That Tony saw the future. He understood farming methods. When you go to a farm now, they can geolocate individual plants when it comes to dealing with water. And, for a nation that has water challenges, we need to do all that we can to support our farmers.

The other Tony—who eventually became Prime Minister—had a different approach. He chose Malcolm Turnbull to destroy the NBN. I'm sure he sent a fax off to Malcolm's electorate office, down in Double Bay or wherever it was, saying, 'I want you to destroy the NBN'! The irony is: Malcolm Turnbull was the only dinosaur in that dinosaur pact that actually understood the NBN. He'd made money out of investing in it. He understood it. But Tony Abbott chose him to destroy the NBN—he sent the only bloke who understood it to destroy it. And Turnbull, to his everlasting shame, accepted that Faustian deal with Tony Abbott.

Politics is a cruel business, and it is very hard to maintain one's dignity and sense of noble purpose in this building on occasions. We have 'one wild and precious life', and that was the choice that Malcolm Turnbull accepted. 'You're young until you're not,' as Regina Spektor said, and we destroy that life when we devote our time to not being true to ourselves.

To Malcolm Turnbull's shame, he took on that job for Tony Abbott. Malcolm Turnbull was the bloke who actually said that Australians should just move if they want faster broadband—you know, move to Double Bay if you're having trouble! That sort of hardwired privilege would get the starving to dine out to solve their hunger problems. So naive!

So the LNP fired up their Commodore 64 and decided that Australians were okay with copper and that we had enough bandwidth. In the late noughties they sent out their fax to their electorate offices confirming that they would sabotage the NBN. Fast forward a few years: we had a $30 billion blowout, and, finally, those opposite admitted that they'd got it wrong and they adopted Labor's original fibre-optic policy—the policy advanced by Tony Windsor, a man who had a national vision, who understood not just the Nationals' vision but who had a national vision of how this would benefit Australia.

And now, not having access to affordable high-speed internet is unthinkable. Today, the NBN reaches to over 12.4 million premises across Australia. More than 8.6 million homes and businesses across Australia are connected to the NBN, a network that is worth about $51 billion.

Australians in the cities, in the towns and in the bush rely on the NBN for their businesses, for their remote working, for health care, for education, for time spent for their families, for entertainment—for looking at cat videos, or even dog videos! The NBN is an integral part of our lives. It's not a luxury. Connectivity is a necessity, and it's one that we need to be able to rely on. As the Minister for Communications said, it remains vital that the ongoing mission and focus of the NBN, to deliver affordable, accessible, high-speed broadband to all Australians, be guided by the public interest rather than the commercial interest of a privileged few.

Those opposite have an opportunity to adopt another Labor policy. They have the opportunity to do right by all Australians by supporting this bill to keep the NBN in public hands. Sadly, we know that those opposite are all set to sell off the NBN, just like they did with Telstra. It seems that it doesn't matter if it's at a local, state or federal level, the Liberal and National parties just want to cut jobs and funding and then sell off public assets. You'd hope that MPs with electorate offices near the bush would be the NBN's Praetorian Guard, but no. The modern-day Nationals are weak; the tail no longer ever wakes the dog. 'Lapdog' is their new canine nomenclature. They'll sell off the bush for 30 pieces of silver and an extra minister's spot down the track somewhere near the trough. This is a common theme from those opposite about public ownership. They'll spend significant amounts of public money fattening up a public asset only to sell it off for the benefit of a privileged few, leaving hard-working Australians to suffer with the higher prices and poorer, more unreliable services.

We don't believe in that on this side of the House. We believe that public assets like the NBN should benefit all Australians. That's why we've introduced this bill today. This bill amends the National Broadband Network Companies Act 2011. We've committed to keeping the NBN publicly owned, and this bill incorporates changes to part 3. It clarifies the wording regarding public ownership specifically. It makes it clear that the preservation of the NBN is an explicit requirement. It also removes the provisions which enable an NBN Co sale scheme. We made this clear in the statement of expectations to the NBN Co back in 2022, and this bill makes the commitment part of legislative framework.

These measures are necessary and they're responsible. They will ensure that regulatory oversight of wholesale pricing is ongoing. This means that access to broadband will remain affordable for Australians. The reforms also mean that required upgrade of the network will be ongoing. It's all part of our strategy to deliver a more connected Australia. This includes more fibre in the fixed line network and, crucially, it has a national security impact. The NBN is critical national infrastructure, and it's a key element of any planning and operations in regard to cyber security and national security imperatives. This includes transitioning to next-generation satellites. Strong government oversight is key when you're talking about a system that incorporates national security because—let's be honest—if this asset were to be sold, it would be bought by foreign capital, and national security could then become more problematic. Those opposite might be happy to privatise the NBN and let ownership fall into foreign hands, but the Albanese Labor government is not.

We need to take these simple steps to protect the NBN not only from potential external threats that would open up with foreign ownership but also from that other enemy, the opposition. After all, they have form. Privatising Telstra was a disaster for many Australians, particularly for those in the regions. Under former prime minister John Howard, they made big promises on telecommunications prices and services and then sold up. The opposition tried to set up the NBN for sale before they said that the NBN was finalised and built, back in 2020. It was almost like putting a finished product on the self with a big 'for sale' sign pointed only at foreign companies. The Liberal and National parties also supported increasing wholesale prices to bolster income streams, making the product shiny for prospective buyers. The plan was to increase the cost by CPI plus three per cent. Thankfully for consumers, Labor and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission pushed back at this dastardly plan.

The Albanese Labor government will never leave regional Australians behind. There is a reason that our Prime Minister knows his Yeppen from his Yeppoon. He knows the bush and he loves the bush. We have invested $2.4 billion to expand full fibre NBN access to an additional 1.5 million premises by 2025, and 660,000 of them are in rural and regional locations. This project is proceeding on time and on budget. From September next year, download speeds will be boosted by up to five times the current speed at no additional wholesale cost, and we're installing more fibre in the fixed line network to ensure that future needs are catered for. We've also listened closely to Australians and know that those living in rural and remote Australia want to be able to rely on the NBN.

A fast and reliable NBN also has a substantial impact on the Australian economy, fuelling economic growth. As the Minister for Finance said about a faster, high-quality network, it will deliver a $400 million uplift in GDP by 2030. Productivity uplifts, carbon emissions avoided by people working from home, lives saved, global markets reached—so much to offer. The minister has said that economic analysis commissioned by NBN Co shows that, for every one megabit per second increase in average broadband speed, Australia's productivity driven GDP increased on average by 0.4 per cent.

Like the great and proud institutions that Labor has brought this country, such as Medicare, the NDIS and well-funded schools, the NBN must stay in public hands for the good of every Australian. I commend this bill to the House.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his eloquent advocacy of the public ownership of assets, and I lament that he won't be serving in the next parliament to support legislation to provide public funds to build nuclear power generation for our national effort to secure the grid and achieve net zero by 2050—another great example of public infrastructure that we will have the opportunity to talk about investing in in the not-too-distant future. I also pick up his criticisms of the privatisation of Telstra. He ran out of time to criticise things like the privatisation of Qantas and the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank, but no doubt he'll have an opportunity to reflect on the merit of those decisions by a former Labor government in other debates in this chamber before he departs.

We in the coalition are somewhat perplexed by this legislation, the National Broadband Network Companies Amendment (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024, coming before this House. There are a lot of things we could be spending our time on. There are important bills on the Notice Paper. You would assume they were a priority for a government that introduced that legislation themselves well before this legislation was hurried into the parliament yesterday as part of a mechanism of distraction from a difficult period that the Prime Minister was enduring publicly in the media. I wish we were progressing some very important legislation that we have on the Notice Paper right now. There's national security legislation and economic legislation—important things that the parliament and this House should be doing. Instead we're debating a bill to answer a question that no-one out there is asking. There is no suggestion or proposition whatsoever that the National Broadband Network will be privatised. Indeed, even the government failed to properly explain, articulate or build some kind of political strategy around why they were introducing this legislation in the way that they were.

We've seen all this before. We've seen them run very good scare campaigns. We've seen the 'Mediscare' campaign; that was a good one. They really did trick and deceive the Australian people on that one. They really did frighten unnecessarily and mislead some of the most vulnerable Australians with outright lies. The Labor Party did that in their 2016 campaign. This one's kind of bizarre because it hasn't even been set up to have any political effect whatsoever.

In fact, when I looked for any coverage in the media of the fears there might be out in the community about the privatisation of the NBN or why there was a necessity to amend this legislation, all I could find was commentary on how bizarre and weird the political strategy of the government was in bringing this bill into the parliament, because no-one understands or can make sense of what the point of this would be because, even if it was a political tactic, it's such a poor and pathetic one. It's not like they properly created the fear out there in the community or we've been reading the suggestion in the paper or watching it on the nightly news that NBN is at risk of being privatised. No-one has raised anything like that whatsoever in the public debate.

But we know that this is a tricky sitting week for the government. They're dealing with a lot of pressure and a lot of bad press—a lot of articles about their competence and the competence of the Prime Minister. We've had prime ministerial apologies in this chamber for mocking and offending people with a disability. One really does wonder about the interesting timing of this bill coming into this chamber.

For the millions of people watching at home, who might not be aware of this, it is part of the decorum of moving government legislation that the opposition is offered a briefing to properly understand the factual elements of legislation—to be taken through what the government might suggest are the merits of the legislation so that the opposition of the day might consider supporting it. The vast majority of legislation that we debate in this chamber is actually supported in a bipartisan manner, particularly in this House. We often reserve our position for Senate inquiry processes and so on. Our shadow minister received his briefing on this legislation two hours after it was introduced into the chamber. The poor old bureaucrats at the department of communications—the quickest they could move and scramble to be available to brief the opposition was after the minister's very urgent need to introduce the legislation into the chamber.

We also know—and we sometimes enjoy reflecting in a lighthearted way on our colleagues in the other place—that legislation never moves through the Senate to the same pace at which it moves through the House of Representatives. Whether legislation moves through this House in hours, days or weeks is completely irrelevant to how quickly the Senate chooses to deal with it—or not deal with it—when it comes from us to them.

There has been no articulated justification for the timing of this legislation. More importantly, there has been no articulation of the need for this legislation. The Labor government are amending their own legislation, legislation that they put through the parliament 12 or 13 years ago, when the now Prime Minister was in the Rudd cabinet. We have a situation where we have urgent amendments to 15-year-old legislation that was brought to parliament by a cabinet that the current Prime Minister was part of. If this is truly urgent, if it is a dramatic oversight, this is an equally dramatic humiliation of the Prime Minister, and one that is occurring while the Prime Minister is out of the country.

We've seen these things happen before: the Prime Minister is away and the behaviour in the parliament is all about triggering chattering and dissent amongst the ranks. Whether it's on this bizarre, weird attempt at a scare campaign or the other curious things that we've seen in the parliament this morning, the absence of the Prime Minister during a sitting week is an opportunity for those within his own party room who might not genuinely support him to cause trouble. I think there's a bit more trouble to come in this parliament today, but we wait with interest to see that transpire.

We should be addressing serious issues in the time that we have. We don't have a lot of sitting weeks left this year. We've just received the sitting calendar for next year, and we know that an election will reset a lot of that. You can look at that sitting calendar and see that this is a government that's pretty frightened to be in this building and in this parliament. This parliament might not sit again after this year, based on the way in which they have constructed the sitting schedule for next year. My point is that we don't have a lot of time left, and right now the government is saying it wants to spend this Thursday—with possibly only three more weeks to go in the third term of this parliament—talking about legislation to amend its own legislation to address a fictitious nonsense of a proposition that the NBN might need legislative change to protect it from some kind of faux rumour or claim of privatisation.

We in the coalition support the NBN. In our time in government, we were the ones that actually delivered the NBN.

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

You're joking!

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm 'facting'; that's what I'm doing, but I welcome the interjection to suggest that the NBN wasn't constructed between the years of 2013 and 2022. That's an embarrassing suggestion, but I'm pleased to have it on the record. We'll hold the front pages of the nation's broadsheet newspapers tomorrow for that spectacular claim across. We built the NBN, and I'm a customer of the NBN, as a lot of members of this parliament would be. We support the NBN and all other best, low-cost technologies available to Australian families to meet and achieve their connectivity needs. We live in a time of technological change, and we encourage the NBN to embrace and think about how they're remaining a competitive service provider to Australians as technology marches forward and new ways of being connected come about.

Obviously we've seen competitors to the NBN enter the market—with a degree of success, it needs to be honestly stated. The Starlink system is one that has a reasonable amount of profile and a lot of Australians have been turning to it—hundreds of thousands of Australians. They have the option of a type of competitor service via the NBN wireless product. Regrettably, it seems that the consumer decision-making process is leaning towards the alternative option being provided by Starlink. So, I certainly take the opportunity in this debate to make the point to the NBN that I hope they're reflecting on the need for them to be a competitive low-cost service provider to all Australians.

Others in this debate have made the point about regional and remote connectivity in particular, and that's exactly where this point applies. And we know that, unfortunately, there are a lot of regional and remote customers who are turning away from NBN wireless and embracing alternatives, like Starlink. They're doing that as consumers, and they factor in the quality and the cost of the service. So, the NBN can't stand flat-footed. It needs to make sure that it continues to look at how it can embrace being the highest-quality service provider to Australians. We have spent a lot of money on this national infrastructure, and in our party we're about looking at ways to enhance and expand the quality of the service provision of the NBN, and there's nothing in this legislation about that—nothing whatsoever.

There are different conversations we can have in this chamber about the NBN. One is the one the government wants to have, which is to debate a fictitious and unnecessary rumour, with no basis in fact whatsoever, and therefore spend the time of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia—with all the other options of legislation that we could be debating—on an amendment to their own legislation from their own last time in government, when their own Prime Minister served in that cabinet that brought that legislation through the parliament. Instead, we could be talking about other ways to invest in and enhance the quality of the NBN, the variety of service options that are provided to Australians. And we could consider why parts of the NBN business model are not succeeding right now and are clearly being eclipsed by options from competitors who do not enjoy the benefit of the significant public investment that we've undertaken, in a bipartisan way, in the NBN, both as infrastructure and as a business.

This change is going to continue to happen into the future. We know new technology will continue to come online that puts at risk some of what we currently see as the most cutting-edge technologies, which may become legacy technologies into the future. Satellite wireless connectivity is a very obvious one that could have been predicted and has come to fruition, and there'll be other technologies that we can't necessarily predict right now but that provide an even better-quality, lower-cost connectivity option for Australian consumers.

So, we could be talking about those things, and we could be ensuring that when we talk about the NBN we talk about Australian families and how we deliver to them the best possible service that they require in order to be connected and to live in the 21st century and participate in the 21st century economy. But, as I said, instead we're debating an unnecessary amendment to Labor's own legislation that they now seem to urgently need to move through this House, for reasons that have not even been articulated in the opportunities they've had when making their contributions on the second reading of this bill.

We in the coalition are proud of what we've done when it comes to building the NBN—the actual building and delivery of the NBN through our time in government. There will be a lot of opportunities to talk about ways to further enhance how Australians are provided with the highest quality services in a range of ways, including through telecommunications and internet connectivity. We are very proud of not only what we've done but what we will do into the future, and we are quite appalled that the government's main focus in this area is on bringing forward this unnecessary legislation that they themselves can't even create an articulate or cogent argument to justify.

I commend the shadow communications minister for his contribution on this bill and the work that he's doing more generally because he's actually making sure that the debate in this country is about the real issues affecting Australian families in the communications portfolio, not what this legislation's about.

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

I often find it instructive to come into the chamber a little before my allotted speaking time to listen to the opposition member in the same debate, just to hear what they're saying, and it was absolute patent nonsense from the member for Sturt. To pick up a point from his delivery, he talked about the so-called 'Mediscare' campaign of 2016. I remember that election campaign well. It was the campaign in which I got elected to this place for the first time.

People might not remember, but the Liberal government at the time had an actual taskforce called the Medicare services privatisation taskforce. So the then Labor opposition's campaign about the Liberals wanting to privatise Medicare was not a scare campaign; it was a truth campaign. The Liberal government at the time actually had a Medicare services privatisation taskforce—20 people, with a budget of $5 million, to look at privatising the payments system of Medicare, which is in the billions of dollars. It was not a scare campaign; it was absolute fact.

I take that from the member for Sydney. Thank you, Member for Sydney.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They tried to do it for the visas.

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

That's right. They did. The fact is the Liberals have never been a friend of Medicare, and the Liberals have never been a friend of the NBN. It was Tony Abbott, when he was opposition leader, who in 2010 appointed Malcolm Turnbull to the shadow communications portfolio—no doubt a decision he came to regret later on—with an instruction to demolish the NBN. That's how much bipartisan support of the National Broadband Network there has been from the Liberal Party; when they were in opposition, they wanted to demolish it. And then, of course, they came to government, and that's exactly what they did—10 years of neglect of the NBN.

Neglect takes many forms. If you think about a house, you can leave it there, not maintain it and not do anything with it, and over 30 years it will slowly fall apart. Nature will take its course. That's one form of neglect. That's benign neglect. But what the Liberals did in government was active neglect. They neglected the NBN. But they also took active decisions to make it less than it could be.

The Labor government of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard had a plan for the NBN which was based on full fibre to 98 per cent of households and businesses. Think of that. Ninety-eight per cent of the Australian population would have had full-fibre connectivity—superfast, eminently upgradable to bring on new technologies and new services, fantastic for telehealth, fantastic for education and incredibly important for business. That's what full fibre would have delivered.

The Liberals came to power, and they absolutely smashed the NBN. They demolished that Labor plan for full-fibre connectivity to most Australians, and instead they brought in this hybrid monster—this multi-technology mix of fibre to the node, fibre to the kerb and all sorts of different technologies, even using coaxial cable in some places. They made an absolute mess of it. They said it would be cheaper, and you know what? It wasn't. They had to completely and consistently upgrade their budget offerings. The cost of the NBN under the Liberals spiralled up, while the quality of delivery went down. In 2020, they declared 'job done' and wiped their hands, but that was far from the truth. So many homes and so many businesses are still not properly connected.

What have we done in the three years we've been here? This terrific Minister for Communications, the member for Greenway, works like an absolute Trojan. I have the great privilege of being the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications on the Arts. I work closely with the minister's office, and I see how hard she works across the incredible depth and breadth of her portfolio. She has been absolutely tireless in improving the NBN, particularly in improving the NBN's delivery and outreach to regional and rural Australia, especially in education services, which is an absolute passion of hers. She is delivering more fibre to regional homes—the homes that were left out by those opposite when they were in government. She is delivering fibre to the homes and businesses in regional Australia. That's our commitment to the NBN. We know what a powerhouse the NBN is, as a piece of national infrastructure, when it comes to the delivery of health, education, commerce and recreational services for so many Australians. Millions of Australians love to stream TV, movies and whatever else, and why shouldn't they be able to do that with a high-quality service?

What we have before us today is a bill to ensure that the NBN stays in public hands, because we learn from experience. We know that those opposite—the Liberal Party and the National Party—sold Australia out when they sold Telstra. Telstra used to be a magnificent piece of public telecommunications infrastructure, but those opposite had dollar signs in their eyes. They couldn't wait to privatise it, and that's exactly what they did. The Nationals, to their great shame, sold out the bush, sold out regional Australia, by allowing Telstra to be sold, on the false guarantee that certain services would be guaranteed. Those guarantees have not come to pass in the way we would have hoped. There are so many communities, homes and businesses in regional Australia that miss out on the full suite of telecommunications services and mobile services, despite the so-called guarantees. If only Telstra had remained in public hands then we would have had the surety and accountability of services being maintained, particularly in regional and rural Australia.

The fact is that Telstra is now responsible to its shareholders, not to the Australian public. They have a corporate responsibility to make as much profit as they can under the law. When you have a corporate responsibility to make as much profit as you can under the law, to deliver the best result for your shareholders, that means areas of no profit or low profit miss out, in favour of areas where there's high profit. And you know what? Regional Australia is sparsely populated—not a lot of customers and not a lot of profit to be made by Telstra—so it doesn't get the services. That is unless they're forced to the table by this guarantee, and it's very hard work getting the terms of this guarantee met.

We don't want to see the same thing happen with the NBN, and we know that's what the Liberals and the Nationals will do if they are ever returned to the government benches. We are putting in guardrails for the NBN because we know how important it is as a piece of national infrastructure, in terms of both service delivery and cost control. We don't want to see NBN prices, under a privatised NBN, going up to whatever the market will demand. That's what this bill is about.

I continue with the member for Sturt's contribution, when he made allusions to the PM being out of the country. I'm not sure if the member for Sturt was here yesterday, because I'm pretty sure the Prime Minister stood at that dispatch box when this bill was introduced. He spoke very proudly and very passionately in favour of this bill and said how passionate he was that the NBN should stay in public hands. I've got his speech here; it's a very good speech. It's in Hansard. For anybody listening to this, I recommend reading the Prime Minister's speech from yesterday morning on the introduction of this bill, because he spoke eloquently about the importance of the NBN as a piece of national infrastructure. He said:

The National Broadband Network is a vital national asset. It delivers an essential public service. It was built by Australians for Australians. It belongs to every Australian citizen, and it belongs in public hands.

They are very fine words from the Prime Minister, who has not been shy at all in his support for this bill. In fact, I think it speaks volumes that, in the hours before he was to depart the country for those very important talks at ASEAN, he took the time out of his schedule to speak to this bill. That's how important this bill, and the NBN remaining in public hands, is to this government.

The member for Sturt was a repository of nonsense. I have more quotes from him. He talked about how the Liberal Party in government 'enhanced the quality and service of the NBN'. I mean, they were the mob who got rid of full-fibre NBN to 98 per cent of Australian homes and businesses and went out and bought—was it 60,000 kilometres of copper? I don't want to mislead the House. Yes, they bought 60,000 kilometres of copper—enough to wrap around planet earth 1½ times—to build their version of the NBN. Copper was terrific in the 20th century. In the 21st century we've got fibre-optic cable, which provides much better delivery of telecommunications. They turned their back on optical fibre in favour of copper—60,000 kilometres of it. It made the copper markets very happy but it wasn't great for telecommunications customers.

They said, when they were in government, that their NBN version would cost $29.5 billion. Then there was an update, 'Uh-oh, now it's $41 billion,' and then another, 'Uh-oh, now it's $51 billion.' That was before they settled at $58 billion, which of course was around what a full-fibre NBN, under the Labor government, had been budgeted to cost. If they'd simply continued with what the then minister, Mr Conroy, started out with, which was full fibre to 98 per cent of the Australian population, we would have ended up, over their 10 years in government, with a first-class NBN we could all be proud of. It would have cost the same as the mess they left us with three years ago, which the Minister for Communications is still diligently trying to fix and repair. It's like we inherited a highway full of potholes and smashed up kerbsides, and there she is trying desperately to fix this mess they left us and deliver the first-rate NBN the Australian people deserve.

I am very pleased to be standing here in support of a public NBN. It is so important for this country that we make sure it doesn't fall into private hands, because a privatised NBN will mean higher costs for consumers. And, frankly, I'm also concerned about the national security implications. The NBN is an expensive bit of kit. You're not going to find too many Australian buyers or investors leading the pack to purchase it, so we're possibly looking at foreign interests wanting to purchase it. There are national security implications in vital telecommunications infrastructure being purchased by foreign investors, and that's a concern of mine as the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts. It is absolutely in the public's interest, in our economic interests and in our national security interests to keep the NBN in public hands. That way it remains accountable. That way we can plug the gaps that the Liberal Party left us with three years ago, after their shocking term in government, and that this government is trying so hard to repair.

Deputy Speaker, I'll leave it there. The NBN is vital to the national interest, and it must stay in public hands. I commend this bill to the House.

Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What's really going on here? We've got a desperate attempt to change the media narrative by the Labor government, who are so bereft of ideas, so bereft of things to say and so bereft of things to bring up that they go clutching at a scare campaign on the NBN. Average Australians are facing a cost-of-living crisis. Many of Australia's businesses are facing an energy crisis and a cost-of-business crisis. There are big issues, like gambling reform, that we should be addressing and discussing. But, unfortunately, those members across the chamber cannot get these issues up in their party room and cannot get aligned perspectives, so, instead, they cynically cook up an NBN scare campaign.

The irony is that, as they're pushing a bill to stop misinformation, they cynically come up with an NBN scare campaign when there's nothing here. We discussed it: 'What is this? What do they want to talk about? We've never heard of it.' Our shadow minister for communications had not even been reached out to or briefed on the National Broadband Network Companies Amendment (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024 before it was brought on. So what you're seeing here is a scare campaign to try and change a media narrative about a government that's running out of steam, that is flailing and that is failing to address the very real issues that everyday Australians are facing.

Real incomes are down nine per cent. What does that mean? People can buy nine per cent less than they could two years ago. Inflation is still stubbornly high at 3.4 per cent, and people's mortgages are still incredibly high. Interest rates are at 4.75 per cent. They're going down everywhere else in the world, but not here. We could be talking about these issues. We could be talking about gambling reform, months after the widely acclaimed Murphy report was accepted. The Leader of the Opposition, in his budget reply speech, has said what the coalition would be doing on gambling. Yet we're still waiting for Labor's position. We could be talking about that today.

I would much rather be talking about gambling reform today—taking a moral stance on gambling and actually addressing a problem that's affecting millions of Australians. I'm sick of explaining to my kids, during live sport, why they should be talking about the first try scorer. I'd love to be debating legislation that actually addresses an issue that's facing everyday Australians and solving a problem that everyday Australians face. Instead, we're talking about a non-event. We are talking about misinformation: 'How can we distract Australians from the problems they have and the crisis this government's in?' It's sad, it's cynical and it's disappointing.

I've only been in the House for a very short time, but it is disappointing. We could be talking about how to make this place more efficient. I, at least, believe—and I think the Australian public believe—we have better things to be talking about than this.

You might scoff over there, but I don't know why. If you're speaking next, I'd love you to explain to me why we're talking about something we don't have a policy on. Deputy Speaker Freelander, if they're scoffing over there, I'd like to understand why we're talking about something we don't even have a policy on.

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

I don't think there was any scoffing at all.

Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My apologies if I misinterpreted that, but that's how I interpreted it. This is nothing but a distraction, and it brings out the lack of economic credibility. It was actually mid-afternoon before the shadow minister for communications was engaged on this, despite the debate being brought on by the Prime Minister in an attempt to change the media narrative. The only problem is that the media has seen through this. It's not getting picked up, it's not getting any buy-in and it's not getting any cut-through. We debated the bill for two hours before the briefing of the shadow communications minister was to get underway, so desperate are they to try and create a wedge or a public headline.

This isn't the first time we've had scare campaigns. People will remember the 'Mediscare' campaign. It actually worked. It was much closer to an election, but it worked; it did pull votes away. But this is not working. People have seen this movie before, and they're looking straight through it. The Australian people have looked through this distraction, and they're much more focused on the cost of living. They're much more focused on how they're going to pay their mortgage and much more focused on why energy bills continue to go up—and will continue to go up—after this one-off subsidy runs out.

Everyday Australians will not forget that they were promised a $275 reduction on their energy bills. Instead, the average Australian household in New South Wales and in my electorate is facing energy prices that have risen by over 20 per cent since Labor came to office—not a $275 reduction, but a 20 per cent increase. That has left some households more than $1,000 poorer a year. They were promised their mortgages would be better. The Prime Minister said that in the lead-up to the election. That hasn't happened. Interest rates are through the roof. Inflation is stubbornly high. Interest rates are coming down in New Zealand, Canada and the US. They're not coming down here. Why? It's because of the persistent government spending. The Reserve Bank is trying to keep a foot on the brake. That's why they're leaving interest rates where they are. Meanwhile, with its loose fiscal policy, this government is jamming its foot on the accelerator, the economy is shuddering and staggering, and everyday Australians are left bearing the price. It's mortgage-holders and renters in our society who those across the aisle claim to represent and want to help the most. But these are the people getting smashed up and crushed in the cost-of-living crisis. It's people in the outer Western Sydney suburbs, the outer regions of Melbourne and the peri-urban and rural areas in the rest of our states and territories.

If you wanted more evidence that this bill is not real—normally, you get a briefing as part of the consideration of the bill, and we go through normal internal processes. This did not happen. We will review this bill in the usual way, but the farcical approach from this government is to do things the other way around. We've brought it on for debate; the Prime Minister got up and started talking about it before we'd even seen it or had a chance to talk about it. It's 'debate first, consult second'. It's a silly stunt, and that's all it is—a stunt. There's no need for it. We would much rather be focused on things we could work on in a bipartisan manner, like getting the NDIS under control. I get flooded with requests for the NDIS. People talk about getting funding cut, not getting funding, or getting abused. I'd love to work out how we can fix some of these endemic problems with the NDIS, like we did on aged care, where there was a bipartisan approach. We actually are getting the aged-care sector under control fiscally.

The nonmarket sector of our economy is now the highest it has ever been. That means things like health care and child care. They're all very important things, but as that part of the economy grows, it's crowding out the business sector, or the market sector of the economy, which actually makes money and provides taxation revenue to pay for all these things. Why don't we sit down and talk about this, or about how to improve productivity in this country? Productivity is down seven per cent. Why does productivity matter? If you look at the last 30 years of Australia and at all the wealth and improvement in our living standards, 80 per cent of the increase in gross national income has come from productivity. That means, from the same amount of input or labour, you get more output. That is what productivity does. But productivity for the last two years is down 7½ per cent. That means, for the same amount of labour, you produce 7½ per cent less. That is unheralded. We have never had that in the history of our country. What does that mean? It means average Australian households get poorer. We would have been in a recession for a year and a half without immigration. The only way this country is not shrinking as an economy is from bringing more people in. We're not growing the wealth of the people existing here; we're just bringing more people in. So Coles, Woolies and CBA just have more customers—more people buying capsicums! That's how people are growing profits at the moment. It is just because of more people coming into the country, not because we're investing in productivity and growing wealth.

We could be talking about this. We really could. And I would love it. I would love to be able to tell my constituents and my former colleagues we're dealing with real, tough issues in parliament for the good of the nation. But, instead, we've brought on this bill about the NBN without consulting without consulting the opposition first. We're having a debate on it without consulting. We're wasting everybody's time. We're wasting the parliament's time and the public's time instead of actually focusing on issues that are hurting this country. Don't we know there are a lot of them! Gambling reform is another one. I would love to see this brought on. The coalition has come out with a policy. I think it's abhorrent. I get emails and calls from my electorate from people who are sick of having gambling ads in live sport all day every day, just like the grand final last weekend—or two weekends ago, if you were watching the AFL. Wouldn't we love to see a clear policy position on it?

We had the bipartisan Murphy report; it was bipartisan. This is something that the Liberal Party and the Labor Party agreed on—the Murphy report. We agreed on the recommendations; the changes we should make to gambling advertising were unanimously put forward. Yet those opposite are unable to bring a coherent policy—are unable to govern. This is the ultimate test, and, coming into an election within the next 12 months, it is not a good test to see them cooking up an NBN scare campaign—something we have no policy on; something we have not debated; something we have not been consulted on. We would love to be debating these real issues, and it is incredibly unfortunate that I'm now filling time on a topic that has no real substance.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don't have to; you can sit down earlier if you want.

Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, the Prime Minister could have sat down earlier too, and we would not be here.

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

Order. Through the chair, please.

Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, those opposite are telling me I could sit down earlier. The Prime Minister could have sat down earlier—

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

Order, order. The member for Werriwa, on a point of order?

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, a point of order, Deputy Speaker: 76—seeing as the member for Cook is having trouble staying relevant and finding something to say, maybe he could finish his contribution.

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

I thank the member for Werriwa. I think that the member for Cook was, in broad terms, trying to be relevant. So the member for Cook can continue.

Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll go straight back to this bill. The irony of this bill—and, Mr Deputy Speaker, I'll address and try and go straight back to the bill, to the member 's concerns—is: it's their own bill from 2011. They had the time, if they thought there was something in that bill, when it was drafted, or to amend it shortly afterwards. Why is it that now this has become such a big issue?

The Prime Minister had the opportunity to address issues that mattered before he flew out of the country. He saw this as the biggest priority before he left the country yesterday—to bring this on. I'd love to see him explain to the country why this is the biggest, most pressing problem: something on the NBN—a word he had uttered only six times since the election, five of them to sledge the coalition about copper. He'd uttered the word 'NBN' six times since taking office as the Prime Minister, five of them to sledge us, and now suddenly this bill has come up, as this government is flailing around.

We would much rather deal with our homegrown inflation crisis. It's stubbornly high, at 3.4 per cent—still outside of the RBA zone and still much higher than where we can cut or reduce interest rates.

Under this government's watch, we've actually seen a major decline in the NBN. The previous speaker was telling the House, 'We may not be able to find a local buyer for it.' Well, what a decline we've seen under them. Australians are being hammered with price increases. Service increases aren't going better. We're seeing people go to Starlink. We've seen six million families smashed by NBN price increases of up to 14 per cent.

Australians have dealt with a double whammy of higher internet costs with two price hikes in the space of just eight months since the Albanese government backed a new pricing deal for the NBN last year. We're not talking about that. And what did the communications minister say about this? Infamously, she described these price rises as 'great news for consumers'.

The NBN's satellite business is collapsing. Two years ago, the NBN had more than 120,000 satellite customers, and Starlink had virtually none. Today, the NBN is down to 85,000 customers, so it has shrunk 33 per cent, and Starlink has gone from zero to 270,000 customers. So, under the watch of those across the aisle, the NBN is leaking customers, leaking value and increasing prices. And the last member, in his own speech, was saying he didn't think there would be a buyer within Australia for it. That's not a very good advertisement for the management under this government, is it?

So I would ask the government to return to issues, even bipartisan issues, whether on gambling or on making this place more efficient—which I, personally, would like to work on—rather than discussing farcical bills.

Debate adjourned.

Leave granted for second reading debate to resume at a later hour.