David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak about section 43A of this bill, which seeks to say that the NBN must always stay in public ownership. It is a completely farcical piece of legislation that this government is seeking to put before the parliament. It contrasts this section—and indeed the whole bill—with many, many statements by members of the Labor Party about the NBN over a period going back some 14 years, when the government introduced the legislation in relation to the ownership of the NBN.

You know who actually introduced the legislation that this government is seeking to overturn? It was the member for Grayndler, the Prime Minister, who stood at the dispatch box over there and made a number of statements about the bill, which this section 43(a) seeks to overturn. He said the bill:

… 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.

What the Prime Minister—the member for Grayndler back then—said was that this legislation sets out processes in relation to NBN ownership. The minister for communications of the day put out a press release saying 'government committed to sale of NBN Co'. This section 43(a) seeks to overturn those arrangements.

Frankly, section 43(a) of this bill needs to be called out for the pathetic and sad stunt that it is. What matters with the NBN is the fact that, under this government, it is crashing to earth in a very bad way for Australian taxpayers. We saw the minister say last year, when huge price rises were approved for the NBN, that this was 'great news for consumers'. There were price rises of up to 14 per cent from October of last year to June this year. That was across just eight or nine months and affected six million Australians. We have seen people leave the NBN—and why are they leaving the NBN? It is because, under this government, the service is bad. The NBN satellite business is absolutely collapsing. It has lost tens of thousands of customers under this government. Does the government actually do something to focus on the success of the NBN and make sure it provides good products to Australians? No. The government's main interest in the NBN is the occasional hi-vis photo opportunity, but you don't make the NBN better for Australians by standing on the side of the road in a hi-vis vest. You just don't. But that is what this government is doing, and to say that price rises are great news for consumers is extraordinary.

We've also seen in the brownfields business of the NBN, which is the core NBN homes—this is existing homes. Guess how many Australians have abandoned the NBN's brownfields product under this government. One hundred thousand. And why are they leaving? They're leaving because prices are going up and up and because the service is poor. You know what else is happening for taxpayers under this government and the NBN? The cash losses continue to increase. In the last financial year, we saw Australian taxpayers have a cash loss of $1.4 billion, up $300 million on the previous year. NBN is losing heaps of cash, losing lots of customers and raising prices. It's a very bad situation.

Logically, what should you be doing? You should be focusing on getting the NBN back on track so it actually provides good services for Australians and Australians don't continue to leave at such an extraordinary rate. But the government instead is trying to create a silly faux debate about the ownership of the NBN in contrast to its own legislation and its own public statements about this issue, which had always contemplated circumstances in which its ownership arrangements could potentially change down the track.

What we need is maturity. We don't need silly, lame, pathetic, childish stunts. We need maturity about the NBN. We need a focus on getting the NBN back on track. We need a government that can actually successfully lead the NBN. We don't need this silly legislation.

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

by leave—I move amendments (1) to (3) as circulated in my name together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 1, page 3 (line 7), after paragraph 3(1)(b), insert:

; (c) to ensure that NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they reside or carry on business.

(2) Schedule 1, item 12, page 4 (after line 22), after the paragraph beginning "Under provisions" in section 43, insert:

NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible and equitable to all people in Australia.

(3) Schedule 1, item 13, page 5 (line 7), at the end of section 43A, add:

; and (c) NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they reside or carry on business.

The previous speaker was talking about whether we should own government assets or whether the incompetent Public Service should own and run assets. A more streamlined, foreign ownership is what he is advocating. That's his line, but you'd see it differently if you were sitting in a car that was dry-bogged to the eyeballs and you were praying with rosary beads for your survival when the ground temperature was about 200 degrees Fahrenheit and your father had third-degree burns and was suffering heat stroke and had nearly died. You'd probably see communications a bit differently than you city blokes see it. You have absolutely no concern for anything outside the cities.

To their enormous disgrace, the founders of the Country Party would turn in their graves if they saw all those banks that they set up being sold off by the Country Party, which now call themselves the National Party. They would see, in the deregulation, the protection that all of our farming industries had being removed. They would be horrified.

But you don't care how many of us die in the bush. You couldn't give a damn. There's a person dying once a fortnight in the greater Cairns region simply because of the collapse of the roads system there. The Liberals would say that it's Labor's fault. Well, the Liberals are now in there. Will anything happen?

We're talking about communications. Our honourable member here is from Tasmania. All of Tasmania, really, is a rural and regional area. They will suffer the same as the rest of us. I would say that probably every week in Australia there's an accident where they desperately need a telephone to get an ambulance there to save somebody's life. It might even be that every day that occurs in Australia.

There are 60,000 or 70,000 people living on the Atherton tableland, 30 kilometre from Cairns, and there are three highways on which it will take you about an hour and a half to get there. In spite it being only 30 kilometre, it will take you an hour and a half. Those roads are not covered by the current communication system, so if you have an accident on those roads, too bad, so sad. You just hope someone comes along and can get to a telephone somewhere or get somewhere to use his mobile and rescue you. I can go into the details of how many accidents are occurring, but we've had one death a fortnight there, I think, for the last two or three months. I use that as an example.

I asked two people about this, and I think I've made reference to this before. I asked the wife of the very famous and illustrious mayor of Burketown—where a very tiny number of people live in a very big area of Australia—whose from a fourth-, fifth- or sixth-generation family in Australia, 'What do you need most?' and she said, 'Speed with my internet'. John Nelson is maybe one of the top 20 or 30 cattle owners in Australia. He owns a huge swag of country in north-west Queensland. I asked him, 'What do you want most?' and he said, 'Faster internet access. It just drives me off my head, the amount of work that you have to do and the time you have to wait for something to happen.'

This is, seriously, life and death for us, and I bring the attention of the House to my own family as an example. The Tyranny of Distance is a wonderful book by the historian Geoffrey Blainey. My family are a good example. There were three Katter brothers. Grandad had gone there in the 1870s in a stagecoach, and there were three boys, two of whom died as a result of the tyranny of distance. My father—and all of us—nearly died in that example I gave previously, but this is a separate issue.

You say that you're looking at putting in a universal service obligation. It's good you're looking at it! It would be nice if you did it. Ben Chifley, John Curtin and 'Red Ted' Theodore would turn in their grave if they saw a government making this service available without a universal service obligation attached to it. The mob on the other side want it to be saleable. Sell-off the most essential service in the country outside of water! (Time expired)

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

Are you seeking leave to continue?

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

Yes, if I could. Another couple of minutes would be helpful.

Leave granted.

I just want to point out that because the Liberals allowed foreign ownership in Telstra, as they wanted, the biggest shareholder is now the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. It is by far and away the biggest shareholder. J.P. Morgan, United States; Citigroup, United States; BNP Paribas, France—these are some of the major shareholders. All the rest are less than one per cent, with one little, tiny exception of four per cent. So Telstra's completely owned by foreigners, and the major and dominant shareholder is China. That's a wonderful outcome! Is there a single person in this country that would agree with the Liberal Party on this? Maybe four of their moronic followers would. And the Labor Party needn't look cute, because they were involved in the sale of Telstra. Now the ownership of your communications systems, which is, outside of water, the most important essential service in this country, is dominated by China.

In light of those things, I can't stop you from doing that. The Australian people will slaughter you in the next election and then they'll slaughter the Liberals in the election after that, and it'll just keep going on until we on the crossbenches get the power, and that is rapidly happening of course. I moved this amendment, which would provide a universal service obligation. The government has officially informed me that it's 'all under control and they're looking at it'. Well, that's a standard joke, isn't it? Those sorts of comments are what we crack jokes about. We've moved that here and we intend to divide the House on the issue.

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

I rise to support the member for Kennedy and the very important amendments that he has brought to this House because it's all about making sure that country people get fair access to the NBN and telecommunications. I tell you what, if you want to talk about who is the heir to the legacy of the great 'Black Jack' McEwen of the Country Party days, look no further than the member for Kennedy. He is actually taking up the causes, as seen through these amendments, that the National Party should be taking up.

They should be the ones standing up and saying, 'We want a universal service obligation.' They are the ones that should be fighting for this. It's the National Party that should be fighting to keep the National Broadband Network in public ownership, because once these assets are sold—once the silverware is sold—you can't get them back. They give you a short-term sugar hit with some money in the coffers, but then it goes.

If you look at all of the asset sales that we've had through the years, both at a state and at a federal level, what is there to show for it now? In the days of COVID, the previous government was actually printing money. 'Quantitative easing' was what they called it when Australia did it for the first time. They actually just printed money. So, once these assets are sold, it's like selling the family silverware—it goes.

The member for Kennedy has brought these amendments to this House to make sure that country people get their fair share, and the member for Kennedy knows there is still a great divide in this country. We have the Great Dividing Range in the Central West of New South Wales. It's a physical barrier—they call it the 'sandstone curtain'—bit it's also a divide in terms of equality of services and equality of access to services in so many different ways. That's the great divide that exists in this nation—between city and country—and the member for Kennedy, the true heir of the legacy of Black Jack McEwen, comes to this place to ensure that country people get their fair share, and that they get their fair share out of the National Broadband Network.

I commend the member for Kennedy for bringing these amendments to this place. There is no point having universal service obligations if the NBN is actually sold off, because they wouldn't mean anything. We've seen that with Telstra. The government has spent billions on the NBN, and taxpayers need to get some return and benefit, and country people need to get return and benefit. That's what these amendments by the member for Kennedy are all about.

I look back to the glory days of the old Country Party. Sadly, those days are long gone. I grew up in a Country Party family, and it's no longer the party that I grew up with. I look at the member for Kennedy. He's lived it for decades, through state and federal politics. He's seen and lived what the Country Party used to be. So when you get today's coalition standing up and seemingly opposing legislation like this, which commits the NBN to public ownership, you just shake your head. As the member for Kennedy points out, the old-school Nats would be rolling in their graves if they knew what was going on with the current coalition. I think that's one of the reasons that current National Party members find the member for Kennedy so difficult to deal with: he reminds them of what the National Party used to be and the values that the National Party and the old Country Party used to have in the days of Black Jack McEwen and the days of Doug Anthony. Those days, sadly, are long gone, but, through amendments like these, which the member for Kennedy has brought to this place, that spirit lives on. The true spirit of the old Country Party lives on through the amendments that the member for Kennedy has brought to this place.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge my support for the member for Kennedy's amendments, as a person with an electorate that has a mix of fibre to the node, a bit of fibre to the premises and some fixed wireless but a lot of satellite. There is a lot of satellite in my electorate. Many people—when they talk to Telstra, in particular—are told, 'You can't get NBN.' That's simply because for many years Telstra wouldn't provide a satellite service, and, as they were not delivering the service, they would tell people that they couldn't get NBN. It was a huge disservice.

What we are finding right across my community is that we're the poor cousins when it comes to the NBN. We're the poor cousins when it comes to telecommunications. On an average two-hour-stretch drive through my community, I drop out of service a minimum of eight times. We need a universal service obligation that covers the NBN but also covers mobile phones, because right across our communities—in my area there are communities at risk of bushfire, and in the member for Kennedy's area there are a whole range of different natural disasters that can befall the community—it really is a safety issue. I've got to say, when I am driving on roads where I know that there's a higher likelihood of having a car accident, it is incredibly concerning—it is scary to be driving on roads where you know there is no telephone box near you and no way you can get a call out if needed. So I very much commend the member for Kennedy for his great work here.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to support the member for Kennedy's excellent amendments. I would add to the member for Calare's observation about the Great Dividing Range. There is one Australia on the east of the Great Dividing Range and there's another Australia on the west of the Great Dividing Range. I'd say to the member for Calare that there's another dividing range, and that's Bass Strait. This is a very significant issue for Tasmanians. Many Tasmanians live in rural and remote areas, and they also have great difficulties accessing reliable NBN. So this isn't just an issue for the bush; it's equally, I think, an issue for Tasmania and Tasmanians.

We have small settlements right around the strait, right around the coast, with very small settlements on the west coast. I often go and holiday at a little place called Southport, at the end of the Huon Valley, an hour and a half's drive south of Hobart. That's as remote a part of the country as you could imagine, but a lot of people travel there. They go down there to holiday. We get a lot of tourists going down there. We get a lot of international business going down there. And people die down there because they don't have reliable access to the NBN or at least the phone system.

I think this amendment that the member for Kennedy has moved is sensible and entirely supportable, and I'd be very surprised if he doesn't end up having it carried on the voices—because who could possibly argue with the idea that there should be a legal obligation on the NBN to provide affordable access no matter where you live in the country? Now, if I'd said that maybe as recently as a decade ago, I probably would have been put in my place by technical experts saying, 'For heaven's sake, Australia is a continent. It's just impossible.' Wherever you live, you should be able to pick up the phone or get on the internet. But the fact is this is 2024. The technology has existed for years. The only reason some people in this country don't have affordable and reliable access to the internet is decisions by government not to ensure it happens. That's the only reason there are people in this country that don't have affordable or reliable access to the NBN, including a great many Tasmanians right throughout the state of Tasmania.

I call on the government and I call on the opposition to get behind this amendment. It's not good enough, I say to the government, that they're 'working on it'. I agree with the member for Kennedy. That's just a line we throw around in this place. It means 'we're kicking the can down the road, and hopefully you'll go away and stop mentioning it'.

So good on you, Member for Kennedy. I reckon this is the time to get behind this amendment. The guarantee doesn't have to be in place tomorrow. There can be a reasonable timeline. We could give Australians that certainty, no matter where they live in this country, for safety, for access to government services, for access to banking, to be able to run a business these days—wherever they need to live in the country, particularly in rural and remote areas and right throughout Tasmania. It is 2024, after all.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable members who have contributed to this debate. The government acknowledges the concerns of the member for Kennedy and agrees that universal access to broadband services is an important protection for the Australian community. I also want to acknowledge his tireless advocacy for his constituents, the good people of Kennedy, on communications and connectivity issues. The government doesn't support the amendment, as it would duplicate existing legislative protections that deliver the outcomes the member for Kennedy is seeking, and I'll explain why.

Since 2020, NBN Co has been subject to legislation known as the statutory infrastructure provider regime, or SIP regime. This is complementary to Telstra's voice and payphone universal service obligation and ensures that all premises in Australia can access high-speed broadband services, on reasonable request, by a retail provider. NBN Co is the default SIP under the regime, but other infrastructure providers can also operate as SIPs—typically, where they've been contracted to service new developments. SIPs are required to provide wholesale services that allow retail providers to supply retail broadband with baseline speeds of 25/5 megabits per second. The amendment as proposed would therefore duplicate the existing obligation on NBN Co to ensure that its services are reasonably accessible to all people in Australia.

The government recognises the importance of ensuring that universal service arrangements reflect community expectations and preferences for connectivity, particularly given the rollout of the NBN. The government has been consulting publicly on opportunities to more effectively and efficiently deliver telecommunications universal services and is currently considering feedback received through that process. The current Regional Telecommunications Review is also considering this issue and is due to provide advice to government before the end of 2024.

I can assure the member for Kennedy and all honourable members that the outcomes encapsulated in this proposed amendment, that the NBN be reasonably accessible to all Australians, will be front of mind in the government's consideration of the form of universal service reform and the response to the Regional Telecommunications Review. As always, I'm happy to engage with all honourable members on improvements to communications services in their electorates.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for her response to the member for Kennedy just now. I rise to support the member for Kennedy though, for the reasons that are clear to all of us, I think. While I acknowledge that the minister has indicated that the member for Kennedy's amendment would duplicate what's already in place with SIPs, I guess I want to say that everything that we can do as a parliament to ensure that there is fair, equitable, fast, reliable internet for rural and regional Australians we must do, and I'm here to represent the people of Indi in that endeavour. I thank the government for the work they're doing through RTIRK and through the review of rural and regional telecommunications services more broadly. I was very happy to engage in that process and put in a fulsome submission, calling for, as the member for Kennedy has done, fast, reliable, guaranteed internet for rural and regional Australians, because, as we know, this is actually a fundamental human right now. During COVID, I had students in my electorate competing with students right across the nation for their final year 12 exams, sitting out in trucks on top of hills trying to get a signal for their mobile phone in order to charge through for their online Zoom education—not good enough; clearly not good enough. In rural and regional Australia, we rely on telehealth because we simply don't have the rural health workforce to provide the health care we need. Again, in order to do that with a full video screen rather than just a telephone, we need fast, reliable internet. Every time I walk down the street—even with the improvements that have absolutely happened under this government to the rollout of NBN, we still of course haven't got there yet.

In 2022, I introduced legislation into this House speaking to exactly the concerns that the member for Kennedy has put forward today. I absolutely support a universal service obligation and statutory infrastructure provider network that requires the NBN and all telcos to support people living in rural, regional and remote Australia, where in fact so much of our economic powerhouse is located. A key recommendation in my submission to the 2024 Regional Telecommunications Review was that the new universal service obligation must address home and business internet delivered as part of the National Broadband Network. I've been very grateful to meet with the minister on many occasions and indeed very recently. I understand that consultations are going on in relation to exactly what the new universal service obligation might look like. So I will continue to come to this parliament and work in good faith, including with the member for Kennedy and the minister and my parliamentary colleagues, to ensure that we deliver here in Australia a high-speed, highly functional, reliable NBN for everybody and most especially that we do not leave a single person in rural and regional Australia behind.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendments be agreed to.