Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to add my comments to those of my colleagues, who I think between them have collectively described very well the quite collegial nature of the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network. I think it has done an enormous amount of really valuable work over the last year or so. Senator Lundy nailed down the divisions and the fact that this has been a very politicised committee. This is our third report, and each time we see a majority report and a handful of dissents, additional comments or minority reports, because unfortunately the issues have become very politicised.

I will quickly put on the record the reasons why the Greens voted against extending the terms of reference of the committee. They are very similar to the reasons that Senator Brown provided when we were voting on Senator Heffernan’s motion relating to the Senate Select Committee on Agricultural and Related Industries. There was an agreement in this chamber that when we went back to the old system of having legislation and references committees we would have a maximum of three select committees that would be activated on specific issues and for specific times. The intention certainly was not to have indefinite extensions of terms of reference and reporting timetables for select committees that may be operating for other reasons. So our reason for voting against the extension was simply that the proper place for this work is with the Senate Standing Committee on the Environment, Communications and the Arts, either the legislation or references committee. That is where these issues should go so that we are not duplicating effort with a committee which undoubtedly has skewed membership, with the crossbenchers not counting for quorums or even needing to turn up at all, although I have participated at quite great length. So we do not believe that the extension should have been passed. However, now that it has, I will continue to participate because we have done valuable work.

I suspect, on reading the early drafts of the report, that they probably read as quite a balanced assessment of the historical, technological and economic contexts of the assessment of the National Broadband Network. Unfortunately, what has been printed does reflect a tone of quite partisan bitterness and suspicion, which is a shame, because it does not really reflect very well on the collaborative and careful way in which the committee and its wonderful staff have undertaken research and field trips, and on the way we have conducted the hearings. Ms Kelly is still in the public gallery. I add a note of thanks to her from the Australian Greens for the extraordinarily diligent way in which she has conducted this work. I think a large measure of thanks are owed from all parties in here for the results that we read in the report.

When you read between the lines and filter out some of the politics it is still a good record of the history of how we got to where we are and the technology and some of the exciting ways in which the telecommunications future for Australia might actually look. We were quite supportive of the announcement in April by Minister Conroy and the Prime Minister that the request for proposal for a fibre-to-the-node network be abandoned and that a vastly more ambitious fibre-to-the-premises network be built and operated by the Commonwealth government. There is a need for this huge public investment, and there is a parallel process of quite painful telecommunications market reform, which I regret will not even be debated this year. It is not on the government’s list of priority legislation because the false debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme has crowded it out. We know the reason this investment is even being contemplated is partly the dysfunctional state of telecommunications markets, resulting largely from the privatisation of the vertically integrated monopoly provider Telstra.

We stand by the comments made in our earlier contribution, our very first dissenting report that this committee tabled on 2 December 2008, in which we noted:

The Australian Greens urge the Government to hold its nerve with regard to the RFP, and insist on taking a majority equity stake in the National Broadband Network and operating it as a competitively neutral, open-access network.

Nearly 12 months later I am pleased to say that the government’s expanded proposal does meet these criteria, but there is always a catch. The report notes at 2.12 that the government intends to build the NBN with a colossal investment of public funds, and then privatise it all over again five years after it is operational. Nowhere have we seen any justification for this incongruous and retrograde policy which seems determined to repeat the mistakes of the past. It is one of the key issues which, when we finally get around to debating substantive NBN legislation next year—and I note that the parliament was meant to see at least an exposure draft or a draft of that legislation this year, but it appears that has now been taken off the table as well—we will be looking for the publication of the implementation study or an interim report of that implementation study which the committee has quite rightly called for to see if the government has bothered to provide any justification for the concept of privatising something again which is being constructed partly as a response to the failed privatisation of Telstra and the mess that it has created in telco markets over successive privatisations.

A lot of the debate since the announcement of the policy has turned on the absence of a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the project. I quite vividly remember the first time that was put to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, in question time, and his response was simply to laugh at the proposition. Our view on the issue is that a cost-benefit analysis is important but it risks becoming something of a red herring—and I think this is what it has become. We concur, as is canvassed in quite a bit of detail in the report, that an assessment of the project’s commercial viability is essential, particularly given the wildly divergent estimates of the wholesale costs of access to the network which have begun to flourish in the information vacuum that prevails today.

The questions of cost-benefit analysis were clouded, in my view anyway, by the presentation of Professor Ergas to the committee. He presented—which we appreciated—the only real attempt to conduct such a cost-benefit analysis to date. During the presentation, the impossibility of accurately monetising the quite intangible future benefits of an enabling network such as this were laid bare. We discovered that from an analysis of this kind—for this sort of network, for this sort of enabling infrastructure—you end up with a series of mathematical fudges and assumptions that are used to lend an appearance of rigour and precision where none actually exists. This was tacitly acknowledged by the Productivity Commission in their evidence, which is also outlined in the report.

One aspect of the project for which a detailed cost-benefit analysis would be valuable concerns the choice of either underground or overhead cabling. The report canvases these arguments quite well, and notes how difficult it was for the committee to get an accurate idea of the relative short- and long-term costs of the different options. The Greens believe that as much of the network as possible should be underground, for all the reasons stated quite concisely in the report, but until reasonable cost estimates are made available it is difficult to reach a final conclusion. An interim implementation study report as proposed by the committee before the end of this year—we have proposed by 31 December—would be an appropriate time to provide the public, service providers, contractors and interested parties with a costed analysis of the options of either underground or overhead cables, including the quite serious long-term benefits of undergrounding when you consider fire and other kinds of natural disasters and emergencies that can knock out communications networks as they become, more and more, essential services.

In the most recent round of hearings we heard evidence—at long last—that went to the question of what the network will actually be used for. The end user and the services that the NBN will host have so far been largely ignored in the debate, which has largely turned on questions of competition and market structure. It was therefore really refreshing to hear evidence given by various witnesses, which is covered in chapters 6 and 7, talking about what people are doing and what they can potentially do with applications around e-health, e-governance, smart grids, remote education and so on. For me some of the most rewarding time spent on the committee was hearing from people what they will use these services for.

The sessions left the committee in little doubt that as the network approaches ubiquity and hosts more and more services, it will approach the status of an essential service—and arguments were put to us that this has already occurred. Questions of equity then come to the fore, whether geographic or social. In an age of ubiquitous connectivity, the disconnected and the disadvantaged will find themselves further isolated on the wrong side of the digital divide. Apart from ensuring that backhaul and fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure targeted undeveloped and under-serviced areas first—the so-called roll-in from the edge rather than roll-out from the centre concept—the Australian Greens urge the government to undertake detailed consultations with social justice advocates and consumer groups to ensure that the network makes a strong contribution to social inclusion agendas. I think anything other than this would further entrench the digital divide.

The final chapter of the report dealing with proposals to undertake reforms of the telco markets is where the Australian Greens part company with the majority report. Our views on this bill are contained in our dissenting comments on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2009, which was to be debated in the closing sitting fortnight of this year. It is not on the government’s priority list anymore and we have heard no reasons for why that is the case. We undertook quite extensive negotiations on the government removing the legislative block that had been imposed on the debate around that bill, and yet no explanation has been provided to us as to why we will not be seeing that legislation.

We look forward to returning to this issue early next year. I look forward to continuing work with the committee if that is the vehicle in which these debates and discussions happen; I am certainly happy to be a part of this process. Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who gave evidence, gave up their valuable time in the various places where we held hearings. Once again, I acknowledge the really important work that Alison and the rest of the secretariat have done. We will pick up this work early in the new year.