Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government futureproofing the NBN, after a decade of mismanagement, by making it more affordable and accessible for all Australians?

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. In April 2009, more than 15 years ago, the Rudd Labor government established the National Broadband Network, and we understood, back then, that fast, reliable, universal broadband would go a long way to defining Australia's economic potential. The ability to transfer large amounts of data—detailed architectural drawings; medical imaging; complex computer modelling—in real time, was the future. And, while we did not imagine the advent of artificial intelligence, we did understand back then that there would be future technologies which would require increased data and that this form of connection would be at the centre of the way of life in the 21st century.

There was something deeply democratic about the National Broadband Network, particularly for a country which has most of its population in large cities, because, for the first time, it was now possible to do businesses in places like Toowoomba or Orange or Geelong which had previously only been able to be undertaken in places like Brisbane and Sydney and Melbourne. At the heart of this was fibre-optic cable.

When those opposite came to power, they swept that aside and they doubled down on copper, and, in the process, they doubled down on the past. To be clear, the ability to transfer data by copper was first patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1881. The limitations of their imagination when it came to the National Broadband Network were completely encapsulated by Tony Abbott when he said:

… do we really want to invest $50 billion of hard-earned taxpayers' money in what is essentially a video entertainment system.

This blinkered, this dogged commitment to the past remains writ large on the faces of all of those opposite. Just like with Telstra, we know that those opposite want to privatise the NBN.

Well, as a result of the legislation that was put into this parliament this week, this side of the House has guaranteed that there will be universal access for all Australians to the NBN forever. So, while those opposite have their gaze fixed on the 19th century, the Albanese government is committed to walking Australia confidently into the future with a modern, reliable, first-rate, publicly owned NBN.