Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill is totally political in nature. It is very much formed to be a political wedge to put privatisation on the agenda for the 2025 election. That is what Labor is doing. When Labor introduced its legislation establishing the National Broadband Network, it specifically contemplated a situation in which it could be sold. The act outlines a staged process under which the government's NBN Co stake can be sold down.

Let's hear what some key stakeholders have had to say about this latest situation. Ziggy Switkowski, former chair of NBN, former chief executive at Telstra and Optus has said:

The decision to hold NBN in government ownership is fine for the short term, say this decade. … But beyond that horizon why do it? It feels like the ban on nuclear power - why do it?

Paul Budde, telecommunications industry analyst, said: 'Even if sold at the most recent valuation of $20 billion, that would still represent an enormous loss for taxpayers and would be a political disaster. Finding a buyer, even from overseas, would be difficult.'

I do have a bit of a problem sometimes with overseas buyers, particularly for our strategic national assets. I can well recall in the first year of the Abbott government when there was a proposal put forward to sell off GrainCorp. Indeed, Archer-Daniels-Midland, the American owned company, which had a less than desirable track record in some of its corporate doings in the US, was going to buy, essentially, all the silos and all the infrastructure that my late father, Lance, and all the other wheat growers had paid for many times over. What would that do to Australia? It would determine how much wheat, how much grain, we would grow. In particular, it would determine the price. Heavily subsidised US wheat growers would get an advantage over Australian wheat growers, who grow the best hard wheat in the world.

Our wheat growers will be put at a disadvantage, and we don't need that, particularly when Canada produces a lot of wheat, particularly when the world markets are crying out for our wheat. Why should the price of our wheat be determined around a boardroom table in Illinois, America? It is just not right. I stood against it then and I know that we made the right decision. When it came to foreign investment we changed the rules, when we came to government, particularly in relation to agricultural assets.

With this particular bill, I must say, we do have an Americanisation of the NBN. Recently I got fibre to the premises at my home and—

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did you?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't actually ask for it even when I was Deputy Prime Minister. I didn't want to get forward in the queue. I wanted to wait my turn. Quite frankly, ADSL2 was working just fine and had worked just fine, even when I ran a small business from home—a rather successful media company, I might say.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Must you digress?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do digress, Member for Solomon. I was alarmed to see 'FTTC' on the paperwork for the NBN, 'fibre to the curb'—curb, c-u-r-b. This is Australia. Kerb, which is the gutter along the—sideway; call it what you like, along the bitumen, out the front of your house, out on the street—is k-e-r-b. Somehow we get all this Americanisation thrust upon us. I appreciate they're our closest security partner, as they should be, and all the rest. But, when NBN and other companies are doing these sorts of programs and putting in place these sorts of glossy brochures, here's a tip: get it right. Spell it right. Use the Australian English version, not the one from America.

Now, as I said, this is a stunt from a desperate and failing government. It very much is. They want privatisation to be on the agenda for the next scare campaign. They did so in 2016. Who will ever forget the bombardment of advertisements, particular to younger families, about Mediscare. It worked a treat, unfortunately.

But they seem to forget their own shoddy record of privatisation. In the 1990s the Treasurer's idol, Prime Minister Paul Keating, privatised not only Qantas but also the Commonwealth Bank. You could argue that governments aren't there to run banks and airlines, and that may well be the case. But the government can't then try to bring on these scare campaigns at the eleventh hour, just prior to an election, so they can then allege—and they will, wait for it—that under the new provisions people will be paying more for the internet and people will be paying more to download and upload data. Let me tell you, this is what is coming. Our position as the coalition will be to oppose the bill. We're not proposing a sale. We are very much economic rationalists and economic adults, unlike those opposite. They want to just politicise everything, as they always do. We will take the responsible approach and will do it in a way that is best for the consumer and best for the Australian public.

Australians desperately need help with the cost-of-living crisis—a cost-of-living crisis brought about under Labor, a cost-of-living crisis that Labor did not even acknowledge or recognise until after the Voice vote was lost. They cared way more about a divisive referendum that cost $450 million and did nothing but create divisions within this country. They were not talking about the cost of living then; they seem to have caught up now, but sometimes it's too little, too late. They're running around scaring everybody with proposals such as this, scaring everybody by saying that they will manage the economy when in fact they have not. We'll take this bill in the usual way. It's a farcical approach from the Albanese government. If you look at their record in so many aspects, the Prime Minister has mentioned NBN only six times in the parliament this year, most recently on 3 July. That was quite some months ago. The sixth time was about how NBN's Sky Muster satellite was helping Indigenous communities, which was on 3 February 2024. Then all of a sudden, in the second-last week of sittings of federal parliament for 2024—who knows when the election is, but it is just around the corner—we find ourselves with a debate such as this plonked on the table and of course the urgency to debate it, the urgency to pass it and the urgency for Labor to pretend as though they're getting on board with policies that matter to Australians.

The policies that matter to Australians are the costs of living. The policies that matter to Australians are the prices of groceries. The policies that matter to Australians should be around the cost of fuel, because every time people go to the bowsers they're paying more and more. Every time they get their energy bills they're higher and higher. That is what the general public is talking about. That's the barbecue stopper. It's not the ownership of the NBN at the moment; it is making sure that, if they are in regional Australia, they have connectivity and they have mobile phones which actually have service. I mentioned yesterday the situation at Ardlethan and Kamarah, where farmers are being forced to climb silos—the Grinter family had to do just that to get reception, to get a bar on their phones—so they can make an urgent call because there is a medical crisis. This is simply not good enough.

When Labor brought out their latest round of mobile phone tower installations and infrastructure, they put them all in Labor electorates. They came to the election saying they would be far more transparent, far more accountable and far more honest in their dealings when it comes to funding initiatives, particularly in regional Australia, and what did they do? They had a spreadsheet which was all red, all Labor. I say shame on Labor just for that. It's all well and good if you're in a Labor seat and have got one of the mobile phone towers but not good enough if you're in a coalition seat. We hold more regional seats than Labor, and we missed out unfairly, unjustifiably. I don't know how Labor members can come to the dispatch box, come to the microphone and argue that they are being more accountable when it comes to funding such as that, particularly for regional areas. This is just another scare campaign. It's just Labor trying to get their house in order prior to the election. Shame on them.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The creation of the National Broadband Network flowed out of the botched privatisation of Telstra under the Howard government. Telstra was privatised by the Howard government starting in 1997, selling off 49 per cent initially and then selling Telstra into minority public ownership in 2006. That meant, when the Rudd government came to office and called for tenders to build the National Broadband Network, Telstra, then under majority private ownership, produced an extraordinary document. Asked to show how it might build a national network serving 98 per cent of the population, Telstra turned in a desultory 12-page letter which wasn't compliant with the requirements at the time. That meant Telstra had to be removed from the request for proposals process, and then the National Broadband Network flowed. We can only imagine how much more straightforward the process of building the National Broadband Network would have been if Telstra had worked constructively with the government in 2008, but it was not possible, largely because of the decision that the Howard government had made to privatise Telstra.

This bill matters to Australians because by keeping the NBN in full government control we ensure ongoing regulatory oversight of NBN wholesale pricing, keeping broadband affordable for Australians. It's also important because the NBN is crucial national infrastructure. There are cybersecurity and national security imperatives that require strong government oversight and which are best ensured by ongoing government ownership. Any future sale of the National Broadband Network would be likely to involve foreign ownership, raising serious national security and sovereignty risks.

Those opposite have argued in their talking points that the bill is unnecessary because no future government would possibly privatise the NBN. That flies in the face of the way in which the coalition has behaved in the past. The sale of Telstra deprived the government of leverage to roll out fibre broadband, leading to the National Broadband Network. The botched privatisation of Medibank Private by the then Abbott government in 2014 took away an important public owned competitor to hold private health insurers to account. That meant we saw the largest player in private health care move into private hands, taking away any ability of the government to better hold that sector in check. Medibank Private as Australia's largest private health insurer then operated very much as you would expect an oligopoly player to operate.

We saw under the coalition government an NBN Co submission to increase wholesale prices on their core products by three per cent over the CPI. The aim of that was clearly to bolster their income streams in preparation for sale. That move was rejected by Labor. It was rejected by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Labor recognised the risk of the measure which the coalition was putting in place, clearly readying NBN Co for a potential sell-off. We've seen a range of prominent economists say their views on privatisation have shifted because of a series of botched privatisations. In 2016 ACCC chair Rod Sims said he had been a strong advocate of privatisation for 30 years because he believed it produced enhanced economic efficiency.

But he said he had now shifted his views and was, as he said, 'almost at the point of opposing privatisation' because the sales of assets had not been done in the long-term interests of taxpayers. Mr Sims pointed particularly to the sale of the Port of Newcastle and the bundled sale of the ports of Botany and Kembla, clearly done in order to maximise the sale price rather than to maximise long-term competition.

Another former chair of the ACCC, Allan Fels, said of privatisation, 'Everyone was only interested in revenue.' As he pointed out, the Sydney Airport Corporation was privatised with first rights to bid for a second airport in Sydney. That effectively led to adverse outcomes for consumers.

We've seen the current ACCC chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, pointing out the dangers of privatisation, again using the example of the ports industry. In a speech a couple of years ago, Gina Cass-Gottlieb said, 'Australia's container ports are regional monopolies, and, in the absence of appropriate regulation, they can extract monopoly rents from users with no alternatives.' Ms Cass-Gottlieb pointed to Port of Melbourne, which was privatised in 2017, and noted:

… the Essential Services Commission of Victoria was tasked with monitoring pricing. In two separate reviews in 2020 and 2021, the Essential Services Commission found that Port of Melbourne had exercised market power in setting land rents and engaged in significant and sustained non-compliance with the state's Pricing Order.

So successive chairs of the ACCC have pointed out the risk of botched privatisations of the kind that coalition governments seem to favour so much.

John Quiggin, an economist at the University of Queensland, has pointed to a number of international examples of botched privatisation: the British government's privatisation of the rail network, partially reversed with the renationalisation of Railtrack under the Blair Labour government; the sale of council homes under Margaret Thatcher, which led to a massive rundown in British social housing; and the privatisation of Thames Water, privatised under Prime Minister Thatcher and stripped bare by its private owners. As Professor Quiggin puts it:

The simplest explanation is that politicians saw privatisation and private infrastructure as a way to get access to a big bucket of money, which could be spent on popular projects without the need to raise taxes. This was a fallacy, refuted many times over, but resurrected just as often in zombie form.

One of the worst privatisations that history has seen is the sell-off of Chicago's parking meters for $1.1 billion over 75 years. Just 15 years after the sale, the owners had fully recouped their investment plus $500 million and still had 60 years left on the deal. Chicago was left with a situation in which it was paying compensation costs to the new private owners. Every time there were parades or street maintenance, or bike lanes or outdoor seating were put in, the private owners would need to be paid out. It's yet another example in which privatisation has not delivered for citizens.

As Clayton Barr noted in a speech to the New South Wales parliament, the privatisation of the Port of Newcastle was said to have been done by the New South Wales Liberal government with no restriction on shipping container terminals. That was shown to be a complete fabrication. He notes the privatisation of the Land Titles Office, in which the then Liberal government promised that employees would be offered a four-year protection for their employment. Twelve months after that sale, 30 per cent of the workforce was gone—a decision which, according to Mr Barr, cost New South Wales Treasury books more than $100 million each year.

He pointed, too, to the New South Wales privatisation of Ausgrid, for which multiyear protections were said to have been put in place for workers, but in fact the new privatised owners stripped out the profits, sacked the workforce and allowed reliability to decline. Ausgrid workers were left jobless, and the state, according to Mr Barr, ended up losing close to $2 billion every single year.

The continued failure of Liberals to understand the way in which privatisation can operate against the interests of consumers comes down to their overriding faith in the power of free markets to always do better than the government. Yes, there are certain instances in which privatisations can produce efficiencies, but that judgment needs to be made on a case-by-case basis—based on evidence, not on blind ideology.

The privatisation of monopoly assets without appropriate regulation has in many cases been disastrous for Australian taxpayers. It has seen Liberal governments place short-term windfall gains ahead of the long-term interests of Australians. The range of privatisations that we've seen under Liberal governments have returned billions of dollars into government coffers in the short term but at the cost of tens of billions of dollars to consumers in the long term.

A botched privatisation of a monopoly asset is effectively to put a tax on future taxpayers, who miss out on the benefits that flow from competition. In the case of NBN, it is difficult to see how you would privatise it and have an appropriate system of regulation which would constrain a newly privatised monopoly of that kind. It would then potentially go on to extract monopoly rents from users in the same way in which we have seen it happen in the case of ports, in the case of electricity grids and in the case of parking metres.

Without appropriate competition, these privatised monopoly assets behave in just the way our economic textbooks would lead us to believe. So it is important that the House pass this bill, because Australia for decades has seen too many examples in which Liberal governments have failed to apply sound economic analysis to privatisation decisions. We know that those opposite are often too hasty in their blind love of markets and too slow to think about the issues of competition which need to be taken into account in any privatisation.

A greater role for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in considering privatisation decisions may well be warranted in the future, to provide a check on any conservative state or territory government that might look to privatise a public monopoly asset in a way which is against the interests of consumers.

We've seen another example in the case PEXA, an e-conveyancing monopoly which was privatised by state and territory governments. It garnered significant revenue in the short term but at the cost of higher e-conveyancing fees in the long-term. The interoperability reforms which would allow e-conveyancing to be a competitive market have the full support of the Albanese government and are something which state and territory governments should prioritise in order that people buying a home get a better deal.

In conclusion, since this is the last sittings block of the parliamentary year, can I acknowledge my staff who have worked with me over the course of the year, Georgia Thompson, Bria Larkspur, Isha Singhal, Angella Fernando, Kal Slater, Iris Eagar, Toby Halligan, Meg Thomas, Frances Kitt, Tori Barker, Maria Neill, Felicity Wilkins, Louise Negline, Bronwyn Asquith, Ashish Nair, and Nick Terrell; my departmental liaison officers, who have served variously in my office through the year, Brooke Gay, Lizzie McAnulty, Joshua Lovett, Hailey Ward, Vijay Murik; and my volunteers, Lilli Stawyskyj and Geoff Robertson, for their help. Each of us in this place benefits from our parties, for those of us who are fortunate to represent major parties.

For me, it's Australia's oldest and greatest political party, the Labor Party, and I do want to acknowledge the extraordinary team of volunteers who have helped me throughout the course of the year, and whose help I hope I can count on in next year's election.

Finally, I also want to thank my wonderful family for the huge support that I get from them. I'm looking forward to spending more time with you over the Christmas break, and apologies in advance for the days out on the hustings in next year's election.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As much as I like the member for Fenner and as much as I could agree with some of his comments, he went through a litany of privatisations in his contribution but he forgot to include the myriad of privatisations that have occurred under state Labor governments over the past 30 years, particularly in Queensland. The only state government in Queensland that has privatised any state assets is the state Labor government. People should never forget that it was state Labor in Queensland that privatised a myriad of assets, including toll roads, which Queenslanders are now paying for more than ever.

So, when I listen to the member for Fenner and the other contributions from those opposite, I find their recent conversion to the notion that privatisations are bad quite interesting, because the piece of legislation that we're talking about is actually a Labor piece of legislation that was put in place when they created the NBN back in 2011. So I suggest that they maybe go and have a discussion with the former communications minister, Stephen Conroy, to find out why this was inserted into their own bill in the first place back in 2011.

This is nothing more than a political stunt. It's what you do as a government when you are facing difficulties and headwinds in other areas and you don't want to deal with those issues or face up to your shortcomings as a government, because they are myriad and plenty. I know the member for Hume at the table could list an extraordinary list of their failures, and we would find that the government has an incredible talent for misdirection. We know the Australian people are facing a cost-of-living crisis, yet what do we see this government doing? Nothing—or, at best, fiddling at the edges, to be gracious to them. They are failing the Australian people abysmally, and then they come into this place and introduce a piece of legislation such as this, which is just a pure, pathetic, political stunt. It says everything you need to know about this government.

As I said, this was passed back in 2011 when the current Prime Minister was a member of cabinet. If the Prime Minister is so exercised about these couple of clauses in the current legislation that prevent privatisation, why did he not oppose them back in 2011 when this bill was actually passed to create NBN Co? He didn't, because he didn't believe it was necessary; they thought it was appropriate. It went through the government's cabinet process to be the law of the land today.

This is purely a distraction from their failure to deliver for the Australian people, and it's straight out of Labor's misinformation handbook. It brings to mind the 'Mediscare' campaign of 2016. It's what they do. It's what the government does.

They don't want to talk about their record because they have no record to hang their hat on, so they find or invent some scare campaign to distract from their lack of contribution and performance when dealing with the issues that are actually facing this country.

So we stand here today dealing with an obstinate inflation rate of 3.4 per cent. We stand here today with the average mortgage holder paying $35,000 a year more on their mortgage. We stand here today with people's electricity prices, food and groceries, fuel, transport and energy all having increased by double digits. Yet what do we see this government doing? Putting into this House a bill that is just a political stunt to divert from their failure to deliver with the cost-of-living crisis facing everyday Australians.

The interesting thing about this bill is that it actually fails to deal with the nearly 14 per cent increase in NBN prices since October last year. That's another impact on people's cost of living that the government is failing to deal with. When I talk to businesses across my community, they talk to me about their struggles to pay ever-increasing energy prices, particularly gas. I used the example earlier today of a business whose gas prices have gone up 180 per cent in the past 12 months, and they're thinking about closing their doors. But every business I speak to is struggling with energy costs, rental increases and increases in the cost of inputs into their business.

They are very conscious of the fact that Australian families are struggling. They are trying to work out as a business how they cover their cost increases yet keep prices at a level that is affordable to everyday Australians. They're struggling with that, because if they have an overdraft or a loan, just like a household, their interest costs on those loan facilities have gone up quite substantially. Many a small business owner in this country also has a mortgage on their home, so they get hit doubly. Yet they are the very people that we want to be successful and prosper, because they are the ones that employ Australians, they are where our innovation occurs, they are where our new ideas occur, and they are the people that make stuff that generates wealth for this country. Just like our farmers, just like our miners, our small business community works extraordinarily hard every day, not just to put food on the table for their families, but to put food on the table for every single person they employ. And they generate enormous wealth and opportunity for this country as a result. They are the things that we should be speaking about in this place. Yet we stand here debating a bill that is nothing short of a political stunt.

As I said before, we've seen NBN prices go up some 14 per cent in the last 12 months. But we also see that their satellite business is failing to keep up with new and more flexible and adaptable entrants, such as Starlink. Two years ago, the NBN had 120,000 satellite customers, and Starlink had virtually none. Today, NBN has 85,000 satellite customers and Starlink has 270,000. What has the government done about that? Nothing.

Over the same time, the NBN brownfield business and existing homes has lost almost 100,000 customers. They're haemorrhaging cash. But this bill does nothing to address those fundamental structural issues in the operation of the NBN.

Why are we not here talking about that—how we make the NBN more cost-effective and more effective for providing the genuine service we want the NBN to provide to Australians? And we all want the best internet possible for Australians, because we know that increasingly we are spending more and more time online. Sadly, that's probably not in the best interests of our community, because we spend time talking to each other online rather than face to face. I know from talking to some of my former colleagues in the financial industry that one of their great bugbears is that new employees tend to want to email or text people rather than actually sit down with customers and have a face-to-face discussion.

But as I look at this bill and much of the other stuff that this government does, it's not, as I say frequently in this place, about listening to what the government says; it's about looking at what they do. Nine times out of 10, these are two completely and utterly different things. And as we've seen over the past 2½ years, it's the Australian people who pay the price for this government's failure to deliver on their promises and deal with the issues the Australian people are facing each and every day.

To borrow somebody else's phraseology, I think it's a fair question to ask—and I have this discussion with people in my electorate all the time—'Are you better off today than you were 2½ years ago?' The simple answer is that the Australian people are not—full stop. This bill, this political stunt—that's what it is, a pure political stunt—does nothing to assist or improve the lives and livelihoods of the Australian community, which is suffering under a Labor induced cost-of-living crisis. We should, rightly, not support this bill.

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The National Broadband Network Companies Amendment (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024 will ensure that NBN Co remains in public hands. It enshrines into law the Albanese Labor government's commitment to retain public ownership of the NBN and prevent the coalition from selling it down the track—and we know they want to; they've said it before. Nothing is off the table when it comes to the coalition funding its expensive and uncosted nuclear power plants for this country, so there's no doubt NBN will be part of that story, and this government will make sure that does not happen.

The NBN is vital for northern Australia, where slow and patchy internet connection restricts the region's ability to reach its full potential in a modern Australia. Many communities in the north are underserved by telecommunications providers because of higher costs and lower population density. That means people in the north sometimes suffer connectivity blackspots and network congestion. This government is taking action to address these problems, because these problems limit how the people of the north are able to run a business, access education, and connect with friends and family around the world.

While the most recent Australian Digital Inclusion Index, the 2023 index, shows that the difference between states and territories has narrowed, the Northern Territory still ranks the lowest. That is simply not fair, and it must change. The importance of digital connectivity to the Northern Territory and northern Australia is why the Northern Australia Ministerial Forum has made this a focus issue to address. I re-established the forum to work together with the Queensland, Western Australian and Northern Territory governments to drive social and economic outcomes right across northern Australia. At our first meeting, in 2022 in Darwin, it was agreed that digital connectivity is one of the 14 pillars for achieving the forum's goal of supporting livable, safe and healthy communities in the north. Digital access and affordability has been at the top of the forum's discussions ever since, and we have been taking action.

The Albanese government is addressing the forum's concerns by delivering fast, accessible and reliable internet access right across northern Australia. We're doing that through our $2.4 billion investment in the NBN fibre upgrade program, which includes better services for 236,000 households right across the north. It will swap slow copper wire with fast fibre cable and give northern Australia speeds of up to one gigabit per second. The coalition, as we know, bought over 60,000 kilometres of copper, enough to wrap around the planet 1½ times—a dreadful waste that shows again how they choose to live in the past. The Albanese Labor government is rolling out a better connectivity plan for regional and rural Australia worth $1.1 billion. It includes $480 million for the NBN fixed wireless and satellite upgrade program to switch 120,000 homes from satellite connectivity to fixed wireless. It will upgrade over 2,300 towers and boost internet speeds to up to 100 megabits per second.

The Albanese Labor government is also working with remote First Nations communities across northern Australia to deliver free community wi-fi by the end of the year. This is a game-changing program. It's a $20 million program that includes the Gangan community in the Northern Territory, the Kowanyama community in Queensland and the Mindi Rardi community in Western Australia. Free wi-fi in these remote communities in the north will boost opportunities for education and jobs and improve access to services and information. The north deserves the same internet speed and access that the rest of the country enjoys, and this government is determined to bridge that digital divide to ensure northern Australia gets the same digital connection that the rest of Australia expects. The NBN is nation-building infrastructure and is essential to the health, safety and prosperity of northern Australians just as it is for the communities in the south.

All across Australia, communities rightly expect and deserve high-speed broadband for our modern digital economy. In my electorate of Brand in Western Australia, families rely on fast Internet as a part of their daily lives. We rely on it every single day. Kids need for their schoolwork or for catching up with friends. Homes need it to run household appliances like solar panels. In my house, of course, we need it to be able to stream music and videos. Business depends on the internet for orders, payments, management and communication systems. It's integral to modern life. The Albanese Labor government understands how important fast and affordable internet is to Western Australians and the people of Brand.

Seven years ago in 2017, a long time ago now, I hosted then shadow minister Rowland in crisis talks with residents frustrated with the lack of internet coverage in the suburb of Baldivis. I heard one story of a child having to go to McDonald's to study, because it was the only place around with reliable wi-fi. I launched an online petition for better internet connection in Brand that received nearly 600 signatures, but the coalition government at the time refused to fix it.

The opposition sat on their hands, but this government is rolling out fast and affordable internet to Baldivis and, indeed, the whole Brand electorate. The $2.4 billion NBN fibre upgrade program will give an extra 1.5 million households access to full fibre, including 50,000 homes in Brand. It will swap slow copper wire—you know: the stuff that's going to go around the planet 1½ times. It will swap that outdated technology with fast fibre cables so the people of Brand can enjoy speeds of up to one gigabit per second. We're rolling out fast fibre internet in Brand so more Western Australians can enjoy the benefits of the NBN in the outer suburbs.

The Labor government also launched the School Student Broadband Initiative in February 2023 to provide free internet for 30,000 families across Australia who can't afford home broadband. It's narrowing the digital divide by ensuring that all students can get online at home to do their homework. It's helping families with the cost of living by saving them thousands of dollars through a free NBN connection. While the opposition's NBN forced a child in Baldivis to study in McDonald's, the Albanese government is helping every student access fast internet at home.

It's an excellent program, and I urge everyone who hasn't seen it, and needs it, to apply and get involved. It's free internet for your kids to do their schoolwork.

The other Albanese Labor government is able to deliver upgrades to the NBN because it is in public hands. It means we have the levers we need to plan ahead for the ongoing digital transformation that's sweeping through homes and businesses across Australia. But the NBN isn't safe from privatisation, because there's nothing we know of that the coalition won't privatise, and we know that the NBN is certainly on their hit list.

The former coalition government even asked the ACCC to let the NBN significantly increase its prices to fatten it up for a sale. The NBN already has a monopoly and selling it would risk future hikes in prices and drops in services and quality. The Albanese Labor government will keep the NBN in public ownership to safeguard Australia's long-term economic and security interests. The government started this process in 2022 by issuing an updated statement of expectations that confirmed a strong intent to keep NBN Co in public hands.

After a decade of uncertainty under the former coalition government, Labor has provided the NBN with the assurance it needed to continue improving the network, while keeping prices affordable. This bill will give all Australians even more peace of mind, by enshrining this commitment in law. This bill makes it clear that keeping the NBN in public hands is non-negotiable. It also removes all provisions in the NBN companies act relating to a sale of NBN Co. This will support ongoing upgrades to the network and keep up with rapid technological change. It will ensure strong regulation of NBN wholesale pricing to keep broadband affordable for all Australians.

Labor established the NBN as a secure and reliable digital backbone to provide fast and affordable conductivity for every Australian. Now, after a decade of wasted time from the coalition, the Albanese Labor government is making that goal a reality. We'll also keep the NBN in public hands so broadband stays fast, affordable and accessible for all Australians, including the people of Brand, right across all the suburbs of Rockingham and Kwinana and all of Western Australia as well.

When Labor takes Australia forward, we need to stop the coalition from trying to take us five steps back, which is every single time they get their chance. I'm proud of a government that puts people first and will put the NBN first so that people can ensure they have the access they need to digital technologies to ensure their future is made right here, in Australia.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Broadband Network Companies Amendment (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024. The biggest question about this bill before the House is: why? I think it's ruse. I think it's a distraction. I think, with this legislation, the Albanese government is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Respected political commentator Chris Uhlmann summed it up as basically a scare campaign dreamt up in a tactics meeting. With a customary flourish, he described the bill as 'a bill to ensure that something that's not likely to happen won't happen'.

Ziggy Switkowski, former chairman of the NBN and a former executive at Telstra and Optus had this to say: 'The decision to hold NBN in government ownership is fine for the short term, say this decade, but beyond that horizon why do it? It feels like the ban on nuclear power—why do it?' I've asked that question before today—why do it?

Nobody quite got to the nub of the issue as well as my friend on this side of the House the member for Fadden did. He made a statement in this place on 9 October, the week that this was introduced, and called it one of the greatest political smokescreens to have ever been created in the history of this place. He said:

The NBN bill introduced today is a shameless stunt. The Prime Minister walked out of the chamber at 8 pm last night having given his apology to the Australian people at 7.59—

the apology relating to his comments about people with Tourette's—

and thought, 'Well, that day didn't go well.' I suspect he'd been playing Jenga over the weekend and was inspired to be a destructor actor—

this is according to the member for Fadden—

So he picked up the phone to some of his ministers, wanting to know what they had in the drawer. He phoned his friend Minister Giles first, but we know he had absolutely nothing to offer. He phoned the Minister for Education, but all the Prime Minister got—

according to the member for Fadden—

was a long-winded story and then had to hang up. He phoned the Minister for Communications, and she said, 'Well, I've got this Mediscare kind of thing about the NBN and public ownership and creating a false story about how it might be sold and that sort of thing.'

The Prime Minister says, 'Bingo!'

The National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 was introduced by none other than our current Prime Minister, who was the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport at the time. In the second reading speech he said:

These bills enshrine in legislation the policy commitments the government made in its NBN announcement … and provide clarity and certainty … to NBN Co. Ltd, industry and the wider community.

Presumably, when the bill passed back in 2010 it cemented that very clarity. He said that the bill:

… sets out arrangements for the eventual sale of the Commonwealth stake in the company once the NBN rollout is complete, including provisions for independent and parliamentary reviews prior to any privatisation, and for the parliament to have the final say on the sale.

…   …   …

There is no longer a requirement that NBN Co. Ltd must be sold within five years of it being declared built and fully operational. Rather the time frame for any sale is left to the judgment of the government and parliament of the day, enabling due regard to the role the NBN is playing, market conditions and any other relevant factors.

I'm just interested in what some of the members of the then government said about this NBN bill at the time. Senator Stephen Conroy made a statement on 25 November 2010. He said:

The Bill also sets out ownership arrangements. The Gillard Government remains firmly committed to selling its stake in NBN Co after the network was fully built and operational, subject to market conditions and security considerations.

Senator Collins, a year later, said:

The bill also creates a power for the Governor-General to make regulations concerning future private ownership and control of NBN Co Limited, and establishes other relevant reporting, governance and enforcement mechanisms.

The government, back then, made it clear that future governments could make decisions and make regulations regarding the future of NBN. So, while they yell across the chamber, 'The coalition government wants to sell the NBN,' and, 'They privatise everything,' it was the ministers in the then Gillard government who were talking about selling it.

Nobody in this place has been talking about the NBN. The Prime Minister hasn't been talking about it in this term, as far as I can ascertain. He's only mentioned the NBN six times in parliament this year. And no-one has been talking about a change to policy on ownership. It seems to me that it's the basis of a scare campaign and a distraction—that we will privatise the NBN and drive up prices.

This would be worth a bit of chuckle if we could just focus on that stunt and the shambolic approach of the current government. They rushed to introduce this legislation to head off something that they legislated in 2010. So desperate are they to create a political distraction that they are introducing amendments to legislation that their own side passed in 2010—

when our current Prime Minister—as the member for Hume quite rightly reminds us—was in cabinet. The cruel irony is they're saying they're doing this because of the cost-of-living crisis that we're experiencing. They created it and we're feeling it—especially people in rural Australia.

They haven't got inflation under control. The interest rate cuts look like a long way away. There are higher prices for energy, higher prices for food, and higher prices for services and mortgages. Where are the interest rate cuts? There are higher prices for rent, and productivity has nosedived. I would have thought a government that was committed to helping out Australians would be focusing on policies to help those things. There's the price of food. You help the price of food by helping farmers do their job, not by taking the irrigation water away, killing their export markets, and making them pay ridiculous fees like the biosecurity tariff that they have to pay.

The cost-of-living crisis that's with us is as a result of the government's policies, and all we get from those opposite is a sort of scare campaign: 'Look over here! Look over here! They're going to privatise the NBN one day. We'd better change our own legislation, which we put together in 2010, to make sure they don't do it.' And we're not even in government!

NBN costs have actually gone up under the current government. We've seen six million families impacted by NBN price rises of up to 14 per cent since October last year, so NBN is one of the many things that have gone up during this government's term. The NBN 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 satellite customers and Starlink has more than 270,000.

This bill, as I said, is a distraction. We could be talking about many things. We could be talking about how to increase productivity for our businesses. We could be talking about how to better structure IR so that small business, which is the backbone of our economy, isn't smashed by burdensome regulations. We could talk about our agricultural businesses: how we can provide them with more irrigation water to grow the food, to make it cheaper for Australians at the checkout and to continue with our great agricultural exports. We could be talking about all sorts of other things. We could be talking about cheaper child care—which they do talk about, but there are so many places in regional Australia where you can't get a place. It's no good it being cheaper if you can't access it.

It seems to me that the current government's strategy—and I've noticed this in question time over the last couple of weeks—is to call the opposition leader names. I remember when I was a kid at school and I was in the schoolyard. You would be having a bit of an argument with your mates, or maybe the bullies were trying to tease you. You knew when they started calling you names that they didn't have a proper argument anymore. I can hear the tactics committee: 'Let's try and get as many references to the arrogance, recklessness and anger of the opposition leader. Let's try and get them in every answer to a question.' I reckon that symbolises a government that has run out of puff and doesn't have any more policy ideas.

I reckon we need to get to an election—hopefully sooner rather than later—so that the Australian people can think about all of this—these distractions of policy, this NBN into the ether. People out there are being smashed via their household budgets. You've got to help them out. You've got to talk about policy, not just have this two-stage policy: 'Let's try and scare everyone in relation to nuclear energy, and let's try and paint a picture of the opposition leader as angry, reckless and arrogant. Let's call him as many names during question time as we can, and that will substitute for real policy that helps get the cost of living down.' The disastrous—

Government members interjecting—

Well—

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're your policies.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This NBN bill is emblematic of a government that is not focusing on the real concerns of Australia and a Prime Minister who is looking to distract from his own shortcomings, because it came after he made a very unfortunate comment in question time. The Australian people want us to get back to looking at some real policy, not these distracting stunts, and I invite those opposite to start doing that.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to express my very strong support for the National Broadband Network Companies Amendment (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024, which was introduced by the fabulous Minister for Communications. That's because in the 21st century the digital landscape is transforming how we interact with one another, how our economies grow and how people live and work. Access to the internet is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity, part of everyday life, and it underpins almost every aspect of our lives.

The bill before us today is not just a legislative proposal; it is a commitment to the future, a future where connectivity is a right not a privilege. It is a bold step toward ensuring that all Australians, regardless of their geographic location or socioeconomic status, have access to reliable and affordable internet services. And, I have to say, I would have thought this was particularly attractive to members representing the regions, as I do.

In an age where digital access is essential for education, health care and economic opportunity, we must ensure that our broadband infrastructure is owned and operated in the public interest. We know that in our digital economy those that are left without access are left behind. During the pandemic we witnessed firsthand how critical connectivity was for remote education and accessing health care. That's why it's stunning to see members from the National Party opposing this bill. By committing to public ownership we are ensuring that these essential services are not held hostage by the profit motives of private corporations. Truly, I think most people in Australia are on board with this. We just need those opposite to open their ears and listen to the arguments.

We are also making sure that the NBN workforce have job security. Workers can breathe a sigh of relief knowing their jobs won't be on the chopping block because of privatisation. This bill reaffirms the Albanese Labor government's dedication to public ownership, prioritising the needs of our citizens over profits. We want to make it clear that under the Albanese Labor government the NBN is not for sale. We know how important the NBN is to driving national productivity. And we know how important it is for the transactions that Australians do every day to access health services, to interact with government and to connect with families and friends. It is for this reason that we have made this decision. It's not a complex question here. You either want to keep the NBN in public ownership or you don't.

The bill will make amendments to the National Broadband Network Companies Act 2011 and other small changes to the NBN act and to the Telecommunications Act. These changes will include incorporating new wording to make clear that keeping the NBN preserved in public ownership is an explicit requirement. This builds on the Albanese Labor government's election commitment to retain the NBN in public ownership, to keep broadband affordable and to complete building a world-class fibre network on top of the government's commitment to keep protecting the NBN from privatisation through the statement of expectations issued in 2012. Public ownership fosters accountability and transparency. By keeping our national broadband network in public hands, we can ensure that decisions are made with the community's best interests at heart. This transparency is vital for maintaining public trust. Australians deserve to know where their taxpayer dollars are being spent and how decisions about their connectivity are made. Public ownership will mean that the NBN will be accountable to the people it serves, and writing it into law will further enshrine that.

Let's have a look at the record of members opposite, the coalition, in their rolling out of the NBN, because communities in my electorate of Newcastle have told me very loud and clear that the job of upgrading the NBN is not complete. When the NBN was first proposed by Labor back in 2008, it was envisaged to be a transformative project, one that would connect Australians, boost our economy and position us as a leader in the digital age. However, what we witnessed over the next 10 years, under the coalition's decade of denial and delay, was a litany of mismanagement and unmet promises that left many Australians disappointed, angry and frustrated. Just as they sold out Australia on the privatisation of Telstra, the coalition sold out Australia again on the botched implementation.

Those opposite rolled out a second-rate NBN that relied on the old copper network, instead of Labor's super-fast fibre-to-the-premises NBN. Their decision to pivot from the original fibre-to-the-premises model to a multitechnology mix has had significant long-term ramifications that the Australian public are paying for again and again. As a result, millions of Australians have been left waiting for access to reliable internet that many in urban areas take for granted. Many communities were left with inadequate service, speeds that were once promised fell very short and the reliability of the connection was often inconsistent. In regional and rural communities, the digital divide was further exasperated, limiting opportunities for education, business and connection.

Those opposite rushed out this second-rate NBN, perhaps in order to declare it complete so that they could put it on the block for sale, selling out Australian consumers and regional communities like mine. Residents and businesses in my community were particularly hard-hit by this botched rollout. Only the 2,800 homes and businesses in a very select area of Mayfield were lucky enough to get the real NBN. Everyone else in Newcastle had to put up with this second-rate version that relied on an old copper network. Residents in places like Hamilton, who had good access to good-quality ADSL, were at the top of the former government's rollout list, whilst the people of Kotara, who could not access even low-quality broadband, were left in the dark. Residents in Stockton, Adamstown, Merewether and other places are to this day feeling the impacts of this botched rollout.

Access to high-speed broadband is an essential service, and it's a shame that the former coalition government could not see that. We must learn from these failures. As we move forward, we need a renewed commitment to providing high-quality accessible internet for all Australians—and this means the mistakes of the past and the futureproofing of the NBN. This is something the Albanese Labor government has been working hard to do. We are committed to fixing the dodgy rollout we saw under the previous government which continues to have long-term consequences. Our government has been consulting widely on regional telecommunication services and has received feedback from communities, particularly in rural and regional Australia, that there is strong support for the NBN.

This legislation has been introduced to ensure that it is owned by those who it belongs to—the Australian people. This is in addition to what we've already done, including investing $2.4 billion to expand full fibre across the NBN. That will give access to an additional 1.5 million premises, including 660,000 rural and regional communities—so it is literally gobsmacking that any regional member would speak against this bill. We are rolling out free NBN broadband services to up to 30,000 families under the Australian government School Student Broadband Initiative; delivering fibre upgrades so that more than nine million homes and businesses can access the fastest broadband speeds on the NBN; from September next year, boosting download speeds by up to five times the current speed at no extra wholesale cost—so a household or small business with a 100-megabytes-per-second plan in 2024 will benefit from 500 megabytes per second in 2025; and rolling out more fibre into a fixed-line network, upgrading the fixed-wireless network and planning for our future needs. That's the focus of the Albanese Labor government.

The fibre and fixed-wireless upgrades we took to the 2022 election are being delivered on time and on budget, which is effectively a first for any government—not that we're hearing any thanks from those opposite for ensuring their communities are getting access to properly effective and efficient broadband. Fixed-wireless upgrades are on track to be completed by the end of this year.

This work has seen over 2,300 towers upgraded, speed capability boosted on Fixed Wireless Plus and two new fixed-speed products available. The NBN is on track to deliver our plan for 90 per cent of houses and businesses to have gigabyte access by the end of 2025, and this work is in addition to the fixed-wireless upgrades and has seen over 70,000 kilometres of new fibre being rolled out.

Because of our strong investment in the NBN, Australians are now taking up fibre upgrades in record numbers, which is leading to better customer experience and fewer faults and technicians. By maintaining public ownership, we can continue to prioritise investment in our underserved areas, ensuring that everyone, no matter their postcode, has access to high-quality internet. Moreover, public ownership allows us to focus on long-term goals rather than short-term profits. Keeping the NBN in public hands will provide the NBN company the certainty needed to continue delivering improvements to the network while keeping prices affordable. The NBN is not just about connectivity. It is about building a foundation for innovation and economic growth.

When focus shifts from profit margins to public service, we can invest in the future. This means expanding the network capabilities, upgrading technology and preparing for the demands of tomorrow's digital landscape. Government ownership is essential to delivering our strategy for a more connected Australia, including rolling out more fibre in the fixed-line network and planning for the transition to the next-generation satellites and modernising universal service obligations.

We must consider the global context, of course, when talking about the importance of a good national broadband network, and we know that across the world there have been some very inspiring examples of successful public broadband initiatives. In countries like Sweden and Finland, where public investment in infrastructure has been prioritised, we can see some of the fastest and most reliable internet services available. In the United States, several municipalities have taken it upon themselves to build their own broadband networks. Cities like Chattanooga in Tennessee have demonstrated that public ownership can lead to faster, more reliable services at lower costs than those provided by other companies.

I think the point here is really that there are many, many more examples I could point to, but Australia must not continue to fall behind. Our place in the world depends on our ability to stay connected. By passing this bill, we're positioning ourselves as a leader in digital infrastructure, ensuring that we can compete in the global economy and foster homegrown innovation. The NBN is much more than a utility; it is a catalyst for economic growth and technological innovation. It supports business. It creates new industries and connects our workforce with the rest of the world. From online education to telemedicine, from startups to large corporations, the NBN is a vital resource in the modern economy.

We know there is more to do to get the NBN to the world-leading stage that the Albanese Labor government envisages. That is our ambition for the Australian people, and that is why this bill is so important. This bill is not just about maintaining ownership of the NBN, as important as that is; it is about protecting a vital public asset that serves the interests of all Australians. It's about equity, accountability and ensuring that every Australian can access the opportunities that a reliable broadband network provides. It's a testament to the Albanese Labor government's values and our vision for an inclusive and equitable society. The NBN is a lifeline to the future of our nation, and keeping it in public ownership is essential to continuing to provide modern, accessible, affordable communication services for all Australians. Let us continue to invest in it, protect it and improve it. That's why I am supporting this bill today.

Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I were to stand in this place, express a fear about a future government banning Anzac Day and then present a bill that said, 'This will stop a future government doing that,' I would be laughed out of this place because I'm not taking it seriously.

If I were to say that I'm scared and worried about a future government banning Christmas and 'here's a bill to stop a future government banning Christmas,' I would be rightly laughed out of this place. If I were to say, 'I'm worried about a future government legislating to kill all firstborn males, and here's a bill to stop it,' I would quite rightly be laughed out of this place. And that's all this is—this is a joke by the Labor government on the Australian people. It's a joke that goes for six pages and is designed for one purpose: to be put on a tile on social media or a DL in your letterbox.

So, to Australians watching, if you get one of those DLs in the next few months or you see it pop up on an ad, know that this government is not treating you with the respect that you deserve, because the other thing you are getting your letterbox, other than a DL that has this rubbish on it, is your increased power bills, your increased insurance, your increased gas. And there is nothing coming from this government to address those problems. Instead, they sat around in a tactics meeting with empty pizza boxes thinking: 'What are we going to do? What's some issue we can manufacture to scare people—not to inspire people but to scare them?'

On that I would like to reference the Prime Minister's own words. The Prime Minister, in 2012, in a Press Club speech, said this about an Australian opposition leader:

In Australia we have serious challenges to solve and we need serious people to solve them.

Unfortunately, Tony Abbott is not the least bit interested in fixing anything.

He is only interested in two things; making Australians afraid of it and telling them who's to blame for it.

Those words were given at the Press Club in 2012 by the now Prime Minister. They were so inspiring they had featured in a Hollywood movie 17 years earlier, when Aaron Sorkin had Michael Douglas, acting as the American president, say this—and it might sound familiar:

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it.

He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it.

Well, the person who came up with this bill knows that we have serious problems to solve and that we need serious people to solve them, but that person is not one of them. He's interested in two things: making you afraid of it—that the NBN might be sold—and telling you who is to blame for it. That is the only purpose. So, when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese channelled Aaron Sorkin in the Press Club in 2012, he needed to heed his own advice. This is not a serious bill.

What we have been asked to do by this Labor government is to amend its own bill. Many speakers before me have referred to these particular quotes, but they are worth repeating. In a media press release by the then minister, Stephen Conroy, headed 'Government committed to the sale of NBN Co' he said:

Senator Conroy said the Gillard Government remained firmly committed to selling its stake in NBN Co after the network was fully built and operational, subject to market conditions and security considerations.

That was on 22 November 2010. Three days later, in a speech on the original National Broadband Network Companies Bill given by the member for Grayndler, the Prime Minister, then the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, he said:

It also sets out arrangements for the eventual sale of the Commonwealth's stake in the company once the NBN rollout is complete, including provisions for independent and parliamentary reviews prior to any privatisation, and for the parliament to have the final say on the sale.

So we had a Labor government with the then Minister for Infrastructure and Transport committing to the sale of the NBN, and we've been asked to take this government seriously on this joke of a bill which is designed for one purpose—to scare people and to be put on material on their screens and in their letterboxes.

This government has a choice and, instead of sitting around in tactics meetings about what goes on tiles and DLs, they should be turning their minds to solving real problems that Australians have. That's what a serious government would do. That's what a serious Prime Minister would do.

If you wanted to help Australians, you would cut back bloated government spending. We saw recently that government spending in the June quarter had blown out to 27.3 per cent of GDP. If we carve out the COVID period and we go back to the norm, pre-COVID, it was averaging 22.5 per cent. Think about that: 22.5 per cent of GDP was bumped up to 27.3 per cent by this government. That is totally unsustainable and is directly contributing to inflation in this country. So, instead of shoving a DL through a letterbox, they should be answering to the Australian public for why government spending is increasing inflation and increasing everything, including the interest rates on their mortgages. It's as if you want to scare and distract, instead of actually solve problems. Whenever we raise that issue the government says, 'What services are you going to cut?'—like there's no waste or bloat in the federal government. Of course there is. Of course there is, but this government is not the least bit interested in finding it or cutting it. It is throwing taxpayers' money away—and not just that of taxpayers now but of future taxpayers: our children and our grandchildren, who will be forced to wear this debt.

If a serious government wanted to help Australians, it would also do things like bring energy down and have energy security for this country and seriously consider support for a civil nuclear industry. A non-serious government—a joke of a government—would do other things. They wouldn't engage in that debate seriously. They'd produce memes of three-headed fish, and that's what we saw from this government. It's not a serious government. They're not the least bit interested in solving serious problems.

If you wanted to help Australians, you would make sure that our migration was proportionate to our capacity to deal with it—at all levels, federal and state. Instead, through the term of this government we have seen net overseas migration go to 1.5 million people. I'm from the great state of Victoria and we have that temple that is the MCG. It holds 100,000. Net overseas migration in this term of parliament has been 15 of those—15, in a country of 27 million people, with a housing crisis and a cost-of-living crisis. Now, the government may claim: 'We can't really pull the levers to fix that. It's not in our control.' They may have that debate, and we heard some of that in question time, but what we hear when we have debates about migration is members on the other side standing up and accusing us of engaging in dog whistling for even suggesting that there should be a debate. That's not the sign of a serious government; it's the sign of government that's more interested in the lines. It's more interested in DLs and more interested in tiles. It's not the least bit interested in solving problems.

If you wanted to really help Australians, you would make sure that our nation is secure. At the same time as we have seen public servant positions grow by 26,000, we have seen the full-time ADF drop by 5,000. As a proportion of our full-time ADF, 5,000 is one in 12. Imagine 12 ADF members sitting around a table. There's one missing on every table. Each of those people were supposed to bring the capability that keeps this nation secure. But if you wanted to scare and distract, you wouldn't fix that problem. You wouldn't talk about the monumental delays in ADF recruiting. Instead, you'd come up with a silly bill that's more of a talking line. That's all you would do.

If you wanted to actually help Australians, you would address the scourge of online gambling. Despite the Murphy report sitting on the desk of the minister and the Prime Minister, we keep going for month after month and week after week of this government doing nothing.

If you wanted to actually help Australians, you would back in free speech. You would back in free speech, because it is the fundamental right from which all others flow. Free speech isn't just about talking; it's about thinking. It isn't about narrative; it's about truth. It's through free speech that we get to have the contest of ideas. With open hearts and open minds, we actually get to see if our ideas hold water. If they don't, and if we actually have an open mind and an open heart, we will move further to the truth.

That's what you would do if you were serious and wanted to help people.

Instead, we have this government producing its mad bill, where it wants us to move closer to being a technocracy where particular people are carved out, including us in this place or academics or journalists. 'But, ordinary Australians, you're not allowed to have free speech—not you. You will be governed by your betters.' That's not the sign of a serious government that believes in things.

If you actually wanted to help Australians, you would address the cost of food, which has risen by 12 per cent; you would address the cost of housing, which has risen by 13 per cent; you would address the cost of rents, which have gone up 16 per cent; and you would look at insurance, at 17 per cent through this term. And the cost of gas, which people use to cook their food and which we need for our industry, is up 33 per cent.

But, instead, this non-serious, joke of a government comes in and waves around more spending on the symptoms and not the cause. That's all we get from this government—increasing the very thing that's fuelling inflation and at the same time saying, 'Don't worry about that. Here's a little bit of help. I'll throw some more of your money back at you and say I'm fixing it.' It'll increase your bills by $100 but then say, 'You're fine. Here's $10 more. Don't worry about it. It's all good.' A serious government would look at the causes of inflation, not the symptoms. A serious government would address bloated government spending, because we know that that is the singular cause of increasing inflation in this country, and the RBA has told us that.

If you wanted to actually help Australians, you would seriously look at productivity in this country. Flatlining productivity has led to six quarters of negative GDP growth per person. That's the only measure that matters. It's the only measure that matters. Instead, to avoid a technical recession, we've seen this government crank the levers they say they don't control to prop up net overseas migration to be able to say, 'How good are we? We've avoided a technical recession.' Well, avoiding a technical recession has nothing to do with how people feel—nothing to do with the real, lived experiences of Australians, who are begging for inflation to come down; who want this government to control its spending, because they're controlling theirs; and who want to make sure that they're not leaving their children a worse future than they inherited themselves. A serious government would address those problems. A joke of a government would introduce bills like this.

Very soon, Australians will go to the polls, and they will give their assessment of this government. They'll ask, 'In these really tough times, were they focused on the things that mattered to me and my family and my community, or were they more focused on themselves?' They'll have to ask, when they get that DL through the letterbox or they see that tile on Instagram or Facebook, 'Is this all you did?' I think, as many others have asked, they will ask themselves, 'Am I better off than I was three years ago?' The answer to that is an absolute no.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In due course I will get to what are perhaps the most farcical six pages of proposed legislation that I have ever encountered in the 11 or so years I've had the privilege of being in this place. But, before I do, I think that sometimes we assume a level of knowledge in our contributions which can perhaps be unhelpful for those who are following the debate or seeking to, so I just want to start with some basics and make a point which I don't think has been made. I think some of those opposite might be interested in understanding the shift in position that they have adopted—one which I say is welcome, but the reality is that those opposite have shifted their position in relation to this proposal.

The NBN Co is an unlisted public company limited by shares, incorporated under the Corporations Act 2001, and is a Commonwealth company for the purposes of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013.

NBN Co was established in 2009 as a government business enterprise by the Australian government which is its sole shareholder. Under the legislative provisions, there are two shareholder ministers for the purposes of the NBN. It is a government business enterprise which operates, as it should, at arms' length to government but is wholly owned by government.

It might not be surprising to learn that the shareholder ministers are the Minister for Finance of the day and, of course, appropriately, the Minister for Communications. One thing these shareholder ministers can do is issue a statement of expectation. They can't operate the company. They're not directly responsible for decisions day to day. What they can do is issue a statement of expectation. That statement of expectation is to effectively say, 'We, the shareholders, expect the following,' and that's the way that shareholder ministers might exercise some intention in relation to the operation of government business enterprise.

This nation has had a long list of finance ministers and a long list of communication ministers, and this is when I say that those opposite might not be cognisant that this bill represents a change in approach for those opposite, one which I say is welcome. As I said, I will get to arguments around how this correlates to their proposal, particularly in the 2016 election to create the campaign around 'Mediscare'. But not so long ago, in fact in December 2022, the shareholder ministers—the Minister for Finance, Senator the Hon. Katy Gallagher, and the Minister for Communications, the Hon. Michelle Rowland—issued a new statement of expectations to the NBN Co. That's perhaps not unsurprising having come to government and being shareholder ministers responsible for such a large and important government business enterprise. However, what is interesting is that the statement provided:

The Government will keep NBN Co in public hands for the foreseeable future to provide the Company with the certainty needed to continue delivering improvements to the network while keeping prices affordable.

To go back a step if I could, what the responsible ministers, the shareholder ministers, of the now government, who came in here and so proudly proclaimed that they urgently need to pass this bill to 'stop those nasty tories from selling off the NBN', had to say in the statement of expectations was, 'The government will keep the NBN Co in public hands for the foreseeable future.' Why the qualification? Well, the reality is that those opposite had a different plan. They've now adopted this approach, and fair enough. But it's a point that has been missed—that this is a substantial change.

Of the two parties of government to come into this place and do battle, one of them, it would seem, had a plan to sell the NBN, and it's not 'those filthy tories', as those opposite would suggest. It wasn't us. I'll tell you, there aren't many conversations that take place around coalition tables that I'm not privy to, and, like Anthony Albanese, who's barely mentioned the word 'NBN' in the time he's had the privilege of sitting opposite, I can tell you nobody in the coalition is spending their time considering or, indeed, planning for, the sale of the NBN, like those opposite would have you believe.

I'll tell you what we've been focusing on from day one, and it wasn't the Voice. We weren't focused on that from day one. From day one, we came into this place worried about cost-of-living pressures and worried about the creation of the working poor.

That's been our focus, not what those opposite would have you believe. I can't help but to think about how we came to this point.

As a former criminal barrister, I would always spend a lot of time thinking about motive and, in particular, what might have motivated my clients to act in a particular way and what, indeed, the prosecution would be thinking about my client's motives. I can't help but bring that methodology to most everything I do in this place, and so, when I heard those opposite were going to present a bill to the parliament—which, by the way, spans a gargantuan six pages only because it's in size 14 font and has been formatted as a way to save lots of white space—I thought to myself: 'What's motivating this? It's come like a bolt from the blue,' and then I thought: 'Hang on a minute. We've got the Prime Minister under a bit of pressure.' You might recall that the Prime Minister was having to answer questions around whether he had accepted upgrades or, indeed, sought to solicit upgrades, and that was running pretty hot, I'd like to think. I reckon the tactics team, the hardheads within the Labor Party, were like: 'You know what? We've got to go to the drawer.' When I say 'the drawer', you know what I mean—the drawer labelled 'distraction'. They went straight to that drawer. They pulled it out, and, unfortunately—to be fair, they've been under a bit of pressure lately, and there have been lots of things pulled out of that drawer. I don't think anyone's replenished the drawer, so they've looked up on the wall, and someone's seen reports from the 2016 election congratulating themselves on what a fantastic campaign that was. The then Leader of the Opposition probably didn't think it was that a good campaign on the morning after, but, in any event, there were a number of people interested in the sophrology and the campaign strategy, thinking it was a fantastic campaign. And one of the shining lights of that campaign was 'Mediscare'—this idea that the coalition had some sort of plan to sell off Medicare. I laugh even now about it, but we shouldn't, because it was pretty serious at the time. We had older constituents calling us. At one stage I thought it might have been called 'granny scare' because older constituents are reliant on Medicare because they're at that phase in their life where they're in need of lots of medical assistance. They were literally crying on the phone to me saying, 'Why would you plan to do this, Tony?' Night after night, I was explaining to people that this was just a horrid scare campaign by those opposite. How anyone could think that you could privatise an entity responsible for giving away or at least transferring large sums of public resources and public funds, I don't quite understand. It's one of the most significant line items in the federal budget. But, in any event, those opposite were very successful in prosecuting that campaign. It's one of the reasons I think—not the only reason, but one of the reasons—why the then opposition came very close to attaining government in 2016.

Back to the hardheads. The hardheads are in Labor Party central thinking: 'Gee, we're in trouble. The Prime Minister's approval ratings are falling off the cliff. He's not so much marching us off the cliff but asking us to run to the cliff. We need to do something about this. We've got a nervous backbench, and first-term MPs are worried about being introduced to the Chairman's Lounge, Aussies and the benefits of flying business class around Australia; they're worried about losing these entitlements. We have got to take action.' They would have said: 'We need something like 'Mediscare'. What can we say to those filthy tories? Wait a minute. The NBN. Let's just run fibre scare. It's not 'Mediscare'. Let's run fibre scare.' So into the parliament comes a bill to seek to protect the NBN from privatisation in circumstances where no-one—not even the Prime Minister—was talking about this, certainly no-one on the opposition benches.

Were this a serious proposal, it wouldn't have been laughed off by the fourth estate, as it has been.

Rather than become the distraction that they were hoping, it's really become a joke, and it's now emblematic of what's happening to those opposite. While Australians—

I appreciate the member for Kennedy. One day I might have the privilege of answering your questions in question time, but not now.

Australians are worried about cost-of-living pressures. We've got Australians having to say to their children, 'Look, I would love to enrol you in that sport, but we can't afford it.' We've got Australians taking decisions about how much underinsurance they factor in because they can't afford to pay the full insurance bill. We've got Australians talking to their councils about having to enter into payment plans. We've got Australians who leave the energy bill in the envelope on the fridge for fear of opening it. We've got Australians walking down the aisles of supermarkets, avoiding quality fresh fruit and vegetables because they're expensive. We've got other Australians, dual-income Australians, lining up at Foodbank in unprecedented numbers—the working poor I mentioned today. We've got other Australians having to get onto the bank and say, 'Can we enter into a special arrangement regarding our mortgages because we're currently paying up to $45,000 more in interest than we were two years ago?' We've got Australians struggling with all of these pressures, which, by the way, for those opposite—I'm sure they appreciate it—are feeding into the mental health stresses that are operating on individuals and families. And while we're dealing with those circumstances as a nation, while we're dealing with a flat-out crisis, with a cost-of-living crisis, with a housing crisis, those opposite, instead of sitting around at head office and working on how they can deal with this homegrown inflation crisis, are thinking about how they can hoodwink the Australian people into thinking that something that has absolutely no veracity can be sold to the Australian people.

Fear is the strongest motivational force. Aside from consistency, fear is the strongest force effectively anywhere in the world. Those opposite have decided that they are going to take 'Mediscare' and make it 2.0, but this time it's got to be 'fibre-scare', doesn't it? It's got to be 'fibre-scare', because we're going to sell it. You heard the contributions from those opposite: 'They'll just sell it, and we're going to stop them selling to those nasty internationals.' I mean, please!

A note to the Prime Minister, who is not in the country—there's a surprise; he's often away: Come home. Focus on the cost-of-living pressures. Help Australian households, families and businesses with this crisis. It's your challenge. When we had ours during COVID we stumped up and acted in their best interests.

Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese Labor government remains firmly committed to keeping the NBN in public ownership, ensuring that it serves the interests of all Australians. The NBN is too vital to be gambled with, and it's too critical to our digital and economic future to fall into private hands. Our decision to retain the NBN in public ownership is grounded in the very hard lessons of the past. The coalition's reckless push to privatise Telstra left regional Australia at the mercy of monopoly market power and stunted broadband growth nationwide. Labor in contrast believes in a connected Australia. It's why we launched the NBN in 2008 as a public asset—to ensure reliable, affordable high-speed internet for all Australians.

Labor laid the foundation for a government owned broadband network designed to propel Australia into the digital age. This vision was championed by former senator Stephen Conroy, the first minister for communications responsible for the NBN. His foresight and his dedication were instrumental in ensuring the NBN's effective establishment and initial rollout, laying the foundations for a network that would provide equitable access to high-speed internet across the nation.

Despite successive Liberal governments' efforts to undermine the NBN and divert it from its original purpose, former senator Conroy's leadership remains central to its enduring success. You might allow me the indulgence, Deputy Speaker Goodenough: I disclose that I worked for former senator Conroy for a long period of time—six years—during the period of the NBN's initial rollout. You can commit some fairly serious crimes and go to prison for less time than I worked for Stephen Conroy—and, with the greatest of respect to Stephen Conroy, you can have a more enjoyable time while you're there! I would have to say of former senator Conroy that he was entirely, and sometimes painfully, visionary about the role of the NBN not just as a piece of technology but as an opus of critical economic infrastructure that would build Australia's economy and allow Australia to continue to grow and to explore new economic opportunities and take those opportunities to the world, and I think that vision has borne out much more rapidly than anyone initially thought might be the case.

The importance of the NBN for periurban and regional communities like mine cannot be overstated. These areas are hubs of growing families, small businesses and essential industries. However, they often face unique challenges in accessing the same level of services enjoyed in metropolitan centres. Reliable, high-speed internet is one way we can combat that disadvantage by connecting communities like Hawke to critical services such as health and education. In health care, the NBN is enabling a revolution in how services are delivered to periurban and regional areas. Telehealth consultations are now a lifeline for patients who would otherwise need to travel long distances to see a specialist. High-speed internet makes it possible for doctors to provide timely, accurate diagnoses via video consultations. This connectivity reduces wait times, lowers travel costs and ensures that, where possible, families in Hawke have access to world-class health care without leaving our community.

Similarly, the NBN is transforming education. High-speed internet has unlocked access to a wealth of online resources—virtual classrooms and remote learning opportunities. Students in Hawke can now participate in interactive science experiments, collaborate with peers across the country and even attend advanced courses offered by institutions in urban centres—all from their local school or home. This connectivity ensures that all Australians, no matter where they live, have the tools they need to compete and to thrive.

When Labor first envisioned the NBN, it was about more than faster internet; it was about building a fairer, more connected, more prosperous Australia. For periurban and regional communities like Hawke, where I live, the NBN is not just a utility; it is a driver of equity and opportunity. It breaks down barriers to essential services, fosters innovation and strengthens the very fabric of our communities.

By keeping the NBN in public ownership, we ensure these vital benefits continue to flow not just for today but for the generations to come. Labor's vision for the NBN is a vision for a stronger, more connected nation where all Australians, no matter where they live, can access the opportunities that they deserve.

Today the NBN has made remarkable progress. Over 12.4 million premises are ready to connect, with 8.6 million homes and businesses actively connected. Ninety-seven per cent of the fixed-line network can now access speeds of at least 50 megabits per second, with over nine million premises enabled for gigabit speeds. By the end of 2025 90 per cent of Australian homes and businesses will have access to gigabit speeds—a testament to our commitment to world-class connectivity. These upgrades matter. They reduce fault rates and technician callouts, meaning fewer disruptions for households and businesses.

Since coming to office we've rolled out 70,000 kilometres of new fibre and have $480 million in fixed-wireless upgrades on track to be finished by the end of this year. Over 2,300 towers have been upgraded with speeds now capable of up to 100 megabits per second, including new fixed-wireless products offering speeds of 250 and 400 megabits per second. It's not just about speed; it's about economic growth. Economic research estimates that a faster, higher-capacity NBN will boost Australia's GDP by $400 billion between now and 2030. Every increase of one megabit per second in average broadband speed is estimated to add 0.04 per cent to our GDP, with the benefits felt even more profoundly in remote communities where faster broadband generates up to 16 times the GDP uplift compared to metropolitan areas.

Labor's vision for the NBN extends to those who need it most. Through our School Student Broadband Initiative over 18,000 families now have free internet until the end of 2025, ensuring our young Australians are not left behind. For rural and remote areas our Sky Muster Plus satellite service now offers uncapped data plans and maximum speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, expanding opportunities for education, work and social connection.

Affordability and reliability are at the heart of our public ownership commitment. Since 2017 communications prices in Australia have decreased by nine per cent even as CPI rose by 22 per cent. This stability has been achieved because we've kept the NBN under government control, preventing price hikes intended to prepare for privatisation—hikes the coalition would have readily endorsed.

Labor has invested in an NBN that works for every Australian and we've made it affordable for every Australian. We rejected the coalition's proposed price hike and instead chose to make broadband accessible to the masses. Unlike the coalition, we will not gamble with our nation's digital infrastructure by selling it off. The coalition, through their early legislative steps, prepared the NBN for sale and even supported increasing wholesale prices to bolster income streams for a future private owner.

The NBN is too essential to be anything but a publicly owned asset. Beyond economics, it's critical for our national security and our cyber-resilience. Government oversight ensures that our network remains protected from potential foreign ownership and from the associated risks to sovereignty. This bill also sends a clear message about the role of government in ensuring equitable access to essential services.

The National Broadband Network is not just a utility. As I said before, it is a social equaliser. By keeping the NBN in public hands, we are prioritising connectivity for every Australian regardless of where they live or their personal financial circumstances.

A publicly owned NBN means that families in rural and regional Australia, who have long faced the double burden of higher costs and inferior services, can finally expect to be treated equally. This is a government taking action, not leaving outcomes to chance or profit motives.

This legislation also reflects the evolving role of digital infrastructure in our daily lives. The NBN is no longer just about providing internet for entertainment. The internet is the foundation for telehealth, remote work, online education and smart agriculture. Farmers in our regions use it to monitor weather patterns and improve crop yields. Students rely on it for virtual classrooms and access to global educational resources. Start-ups and small businesses depend on fast, reliable broadband to connect with markets worldwide.

The Albanese government understands that safeguarding the NBN is about safeguarding Australia's future competitiveness and opportunities for innovation. We must not forget the risks of doing otherwise. Privatising the NBN, as those opposite have toyed with in the past and I daresay are toying with as we speak, would turn this essential service into just another for-profit enterprise. We've seen where that leads: costs rise, services decline and those in less-profitable areas are left behind. Australians are still grappling with the consequences of Telstra's privatisation, and we cannot allow history to repeat itself. The National Broadband Network is too vital to be sold off and sacrificed for short-term fiscal gain or political expedience—or, in the case of those opposite over their term of government, to plug budgetary black holes.

It's also worth addressing the economic impact of public ownership. Keeping the NBN in public hands isn't just about protecting consumers; it's about securing long-term returns for our nation. A publicly owned NBN continues to generate value for Australian taxpayers while ensuring that services remain accessible and affordable. This is a government making sound, future focused investments, not hollowing out essential infrastructure for short-term political wins. Lastly, this bill is about protecting Australia's sovereignty and security in a digital age. A publicly owned NBN ensures that critical infrastructure remains under Australian control, safeguarding our national security interests. In an era when cybersecurity threats are increasing, this Labor government is ensuring that one of our most important assets is protected, managed and operated exclusively in the national interest.

The Albanese Labor government believes that the National Broadband Network belongs to the Australian people—every family, every worker, every business. It is a fundamental pillar of equity, economic growth and national security. By keeping it in public hands we ensure that it serves everyone, not just the special few. That is what good government does: it builds a fairer, better future for all Australians.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have the privilege, I think, of being the only historian in the parliament—in the House or in the Senate. My published work was published by the Murdoch Press, the big boys on the block, so I can speak with some authority on the history of our country. I was brought up in a country where the wool industry had carried Australia for some 200 years. In 1990 it was still the biggest export earner that this country had. Mr Keating deregulated the wool industry. He's a free marketeer. He believes in private enterprise running and owning everything.

As a result of this deregulation of the wool industry we now effectively have no wool industry at all. We still have some fat sheep, but there is no wool industry now at all. To take my own state electorate, we had 3½ million sheep. I doubt whether we've got 100,000 sheep there now. In the cattle industry, our cattle number is down eight million. The wool industry has gone completely. The cattle industry has gone down from 32 million down to 24 million, the herd, so one wonders what the hell is going on out there. Well, nothing is going on out there. That's what's happening. The sugar industry, which worked Australia out of the Great Depression, is the third- or fourth-biggest agricultural earner and about the 12th-biggest earner of export income for Australia. All of the sugar mills were Australian owned: 23 of them were farmer owned; three were Australian corporate owned. Now all 23 mills—three have closed—are foreign owned. You've wrecked the wool industry, you've wrecked the sugar industry and you've been an absolute disaster for the cattle industry. Notice I'm not saying Liberals or Labor, because both of them have been heavily involved in the disasters that have occurred and taken place in agriculture in Australia.

Let me switch to the electricity industry. We don't necessarily represent people like me, just rural industries. I speak with authority because I was the electricity minister in Queensland, and when the government fell in 1990 to the so-called socialists, the ALP, the price of electricity for a household was $640. There's no justification for electricity being over $700. I should know, because I was the minister. Not only was I the minister but I was also the minister that put the first standalone solar system in Australia. In 1983, when most of you weren't even born, we put the first solar system in. I know the industries backwards, and being a mining man I know the cost of mining and processing silicon into solar cells. The great tragedy of this is—I can't speak with authority for the other states—that in Queensland there is no justification for anyone paying over $700 for their electricity, and they're currently paying $3,200 for their electricity. For those people that put solar panels on their roof and get electricity from solar, we're going to cut down 500 million trees in Australia to have solar electricity. I don't know that that's a good trade. About five million acres are going to be denuded and turned into an industrial wasteland of rotting glass and aluminium. The honourable minister Plibersek knows we have algae ponds from coal-fired power stations which can absorb all the CO2—you need a lot of land and a lot of water to do it—and you'll make, on the figures I've seen, more money out of the algae then you'll make out of selling the electricity.

We are talking tonight about the communications system of Australia, and it's an essential service. There were two people who died on a cattle station I own, 250,000 acres. They died on the boundary, and if there had been a telephone service then one of them would have survived. There were three cattle boys, my father and his two brothers. I come from a family that went out on a stagecoach in the 1870s or 1880s to the middle of nowhere, and that's where we've always lived. Of the three cattle boys, two died as a result of the tyranny of distance. If we're talking here tonight about communication systems, then we're talking about the tyranny of distance.

My Uncle Norman got injured in a motorcar accident and then again in rugby league. If the plane had been in Cloncurry, he would've got to Brisbane in time and his life would've been saved. But the plane was in Longreach and, by the time it came back to Cloncurry and then went to Brisbane, it was too late and he died. My father had cancer and he was supposed to get an operation, but there was an airline strike. He was in no condition to drive down, so the airline was the only way of getting there. He wouldn't jump the queue, so he waited 3½ months, and by the time he got down there the cancer had got away and he died. So two of the three Katter boys died as a result of the tyranny of distance.

We were trapped during the wet season. It was an all-dirt road to Brisbane then. My father, rather foolishly, tried to drive it in the wet season. That was a very bad mistake. We all nearly perished. We were sitting in the car with our rosary, saying prayers, and my father had third-degree burns because he tried to walk for help. By some miracle we were rescued. But if we had had the telecommunications we have today, that would not have occurred. The danger would not have existed. Where I come from, it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Ernie Camp represents one of the biggest shires in Queensland, the Burke shire, right up in the north-western corner of Queensland. Ernie's wife said that they're just driven off their heads because of the lack of telecommunication speed with their computers. John Nelson is one of the leading cattlemen in Australia. He's probably one of the 30 or 40 biggest cattlemen in Australia. I said, 'If you had your choice of what you want, what would it be?' I thought he'd say 'water' or 'freeholding' or something like that. He said, 'Proper internet speed.' There are two people—they're two of the most prominent people in outback Australia—and both of them are saying 'internet speed'.

There's the Liberals and the Labour Party. The Labor Party likes to pretend that they don't want to privatise everything and that it's the Liberals who want to privatise everything. But if you actually have a look at privatisation, they did most of the privatisation, not the Liberals. I'm sure the Liberals would've if they had been there, but Keating hadn't left much in the cupboard for them. There was nothing much for them to sell. Of course, we all know the reason why Christine Holgate was sacked. It was because she wouldn't sell Australia Post. In fact, the mortal sin was that she wanted to turn Australia Post into a people's own bank. Heavens! The people of Australia owning their own bank and controlling money! Oh, what a communistic outlook she had! So they had to sack one of the greatest businesswomen the country had ever produced—or ever will produce, probably.

We're talking about the government. They're claiming that we don't need a universal service obligation, which is the amendment that I have proposed. I have highly skilled people, one of whom was a senior counsel adviser producing documentation for the NSW government and is definitely no slouch. She can't actually find anywhere in where a statement that there is a responsibility for a universal service obligation.

I can't conclude my speech without mentioning Ben Chifley, the Prime Minister without peer. He is easily the greatest Prime Minister the country has ever had. He was a protege of the great 'Red Ted' Theodore. Chifley eradicated tuberculosis in Australia. He gave us the Snowy Mountains Scheme, which doubled agricultural production in Australia and gave us a secure electricity supply for all of Australia, up until now—and I emphasise 'up until now'. He gave us, as a secondary industry, the Holden motorcar as well. What a fantastic contribution to the Australian nation! Of course, he's in the history books.

Now, Kevin Rudd will also be in history books because he gave us the NBN, the best communication system anywhere in the world.

No-one can ever take that away from Kevin. He also gave us the NDIS, which I think may be the most marvellous thing I've seen done since I've been here. It's had a lot of teething problems, but that's natural.

Going back to the NBN, all I can say is that we're a long way from where we should be, when there are people like Ernie Camp's wife—Ernie Camp's family, like my own, have been there since the 1870s, I think, maybe longer—and one of the 20, maybe 30 or 40 biggest cattlemen in Australia both saying to me that the problem is communications. So I urge the government to accept the amendment we are proposing so that there's a universal service obligation.

When it was proposed in the Liberal and National party room that we were going to privatise Telstra, I left with my feet. I was still in the party room then. I left with great anger. A man I had immense respect for, John Howard, assured me that I had no worries and that there would be a universal service obligation. Well, as much as I love John and respect him, I sure would like to put the number of complaints we've had about telecommunications. I had a quick glance, and something like 200 complaints have come into my office this year. That's the universal service obligation! It's a joke.

You're moving now into an area where we've got no guarantees. If you say it's going to provide a wonderful service for everybody, why don't you put it in the legislation? It is silly to think that Mary Thomas, living in Julia Creek, is going to sue Telstra, but at least give her the chance to sue Telstra, please, with a universal service obligation. If you're saying that you're giving it, where is it in the legislation? Where is it in the regulations? Minister, whether you're responsible or the minister that may be primarily responsible, would you please tell the parliament and the people of Australia where the universal service obligation is, and, if it's not there, would you please accept our amendment?

I think I have some locus standi here, representing about a tenth of the surface area of Australia, with one of the biggest electorates in population in Australia, ironically. So I think I have some locus standi here. Having come from a family that has suffered and lost so much as a result of the tyranny of distance I think also qualifies me to state: where is the universal service obligation?

When we were bogged to the eyeballs in the motor car, the sun came out and the rain went away and we had about 17 hours to survive. You can take some water out of the radiator, and we had a fair amount of water with us. But my father tried to walk for help. He ended up with third-degree burns and was hospitalised for almost a week, recovering from heat stroke. He was trying to save our lives whilst we sat in the car with our rosary beads, saying prayers. I won't say how we were rescued. But, if we'd had a mobile telephone, that terrible situation could have been avoided— (Time expired)

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Goodenough, I take the opportunity to thank you for my 2025 calendar, which arrived today. And in that 2025 calendar I'm going to mark 2025 as the year that we roll out more fibre broadband to Ashfield—I'll mark that in the calendar—and more fibre broadband to Bassendean in my electorate. I'll mark in the calendar that we put more fibre out in Bayswater, after years and years and calendars and calendars of failure when it comes to the National Broadband Network under those opposite.

You would have marked the date of 20 December 2010 in your calendar, Deputy Speaker, because you would know that was the day that those opposite, under their then leader Tony Abbott, said:

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

That's where we've come from. If we were to go forward a few years into the calendar and look at 9 April 2013, that's when the leader of those opposite told us:

We are absolutely confident that 25 megs is going to be enough, more than enough, for the average household.

Debate interrupted.