Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In addressing this matter of public importance, I am pretty cheesed off that there is in fact a necessity to rise to protest the Gillard government’s continued refusal to subject the National Broadband Network to parliamentary and economic scrutiny, but here we are. Just because something sounds good does not mean that it is good. Just because a national broadband network sounds like a good thing to do does not mean that the government’s National Broadband Network is the right thing to do.

16:59:06

The government has continued at every turn to refuse to prove that its National Broadband Network is a good thing and the right thing to do. It released a $25 million taxpayer funded implementation study that said that, based on a range of untested and thus far unproven assumptions, the government’s NBN can be built. The implementation study did not look at the question of whether or not the NBN should be built, because McKinsey, the consultants who did the study, were not asked to do so. In fact, a senior officer at the relevant department, Mr Quinlivan, said in answer to Senate questioning, ‘Why do a cost-benefit analysis of a policy promise that the government has already made and said it is going to do anyway?’—hence, supposedly, the reason that the government says, ‘We don’t need a cost-benefit analysis; there’s a business plan.’

The NBN Co. has a business plan. Senator Conroy told us at Senate estimates the time before last that, once the business case was to hand, the public would not see the business case—not then, not ever. He seems to have modified that position, because at estimates just gone he said:

A whole range of information within the business plan will be made available.

When we asked him questions like ‘What? Your selectively edited version? Is that right—your edited version with bits blacked out?’ we got no further information. So we stay tuned for the NBN Co.’s business plan.

Meanwhile, the government oppose the member for Wentworth’s private member’s bill to send the NBN off for examination by the Productivity Commission from an economic and social perspective. So what is the government hiding? Surely the only reason that they are failing to subject the biggest infrastructure spend in this country—$43 billion—to economic and parliamentary scrutiny is that they have something to hide. Perhaps they know or believe that it will not be proven to be commercially viable.

They are already hiding. They used a mechanism to avoid the Public Works Committee, which has the terms of reference of looking at any public works valued at $15 million or more. They used a route to get an exemption from that process. With two previous NBN exemptions, they went before the House and sought exemption on the grounds that it would supposedly slow down the NBN and got exemption through the House. But not this time. This time they went directly to the Governor-General. The government went running to the Governor-General with an argument that, because NBN Co. was competing with the private sector, supposedly, it ought to be exempted—again, avoiding immediate scrutiny by the House of Representatives.

What does the government have to hide? What does the government have to hide with the universal service obligation and the realisation of that? Why, when the government announced in June this year that they would be implementing some sort of universal service obligation, have they only just released a discussion paper to that end—a discussion paper that they are leaving open for consultation for, oh, an entire two weeks about the performance of an obligation to ensure that each and every Australian has fair and equitable access to this National Broadband Network? What does the government have to hide when it allows the ACCC to only now publish its point-to-point discussion paper—the discussion paper about where NBN Co. and the NBN connect to existing networks. It has just been released now—and, again, for a two-week consultation period. What does the government have to hide when the finalisation of the universal service obligation and the finalisation of the point-to-point arrangements both affect the cost of the NBN? How can NBN Company. do its business case with any sort of certainty without knowing the results of both of those two things? Unfortunately, this government have plenty to hide as far as the NBN goes.

It is sounding too good to be true that most Australians will, through the NBN, get access to faster and cheaper broadband. It is sounding too good to be true that the NBN will increase Australia’s productivity and somehow miraculously improve health outcomes for disadvantaged Australians. And it is sounding too good to be true that, at the end of all of this, taxpayers will recover their $43 billion spend through private investment in the network. It is simply sounding too good to be true. And you know what? It probably is too good to be true, and that is why the government continue to hide from any sort of real parliamentary scrutiny and, more importantly, any sort of independent economic scrutiny.

There is an interesting parallel with water, which Minister Conroy effectively fessed up in question time two days ago when he said:

The government is determined that the investment in rural water infrastructure will result in value for money: fit-for-purpose projects which best provide for a viable and sustainable future for irrigation industries. Comprehensive due diligence assessment of business cases is necessary and involves rigorous analysis against technical, socioeconomic and environmental data.

That to me sounds like a cost-benefit analysis of water—the infrastructure spend of which is less than a 10th of the $43 billion NBN spend. A spend of some $3.7 billion for water necessitates that sort of analysis but not a tenfold spend on the NBN. On water, the government belatedly realised, ‘Oops! It sounds good for the environment but maybe it is not good for everything and maybe it is not good for all users of the river. Better look at social and economic issues.’ So too late comes the day of reckoning and the MDBA is made the fall guy for the government’s failures.

When will be the day of reckoning for the NBN? Let us wait and see this government make NBN Co. the fall guy for this government’s belated realisation that they should have done a cost-benefit analysis of their reckless $43 billion spend. (Time expired)