Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I am citing Senator Conroy from estimates and from yesterday in question time. The government cannot even get its own line straight on this.

We then come to connection of the service. The latest in decor in Tasmania is these wonderful eight- by eight- by three-inch, in the old terms—approximately 200- by 200- by 75-millimetre—boxes. I have constituents who have these boxes on their bedroom walls. A great fashion accessory in your bedroom is a 200- by 200- by 75-millimetre box! I am holding a photograph of the boxes on the wall in a particular constituent’s residence—it is a pity it is not in colour; otherwise, you would see the bright light on the box that shows there is no service. It took something like six weeks for this service to be provided, and a large part of that time was spent in correspondence with the office of the local member, the member for Braddon—and not getting too far, I might say. Once the opposition got involved, it was connected within 48 hours. The government think, ‘Just follow along; just let it all happen.’ There are two boxes on the wall in this photograph, but my constituent tells me there are now three—the third box is the modem. The photo was taken in her lounge room, and I would not call these the greatest fashion accessories: a network termination box, a battery pack and a modem.

There is something else that the government is not telling Australians about this service. Another constituent of mine ordered a 50-megabit service. That is what they thought they would be able to utilise for their home. On this occasion, the installation was okay; they got the modem installed in a cupboard in their garage. The problem was that the computer was in the middle of the house, some 15 metres away from the modem. When they went to test their service, what did they find? The drop in service from the wireless modem installed in the garage to the computer in the lounge room was in excess of 50 per cent. They bought a 50-megabit service and they got a 23-megabit service. There has been a lot of discussion and debate about the need to hardwire your house, and a lot of that is being scoffed at. Senator Conroy’s second-best friends at the Australian said some time ago there might be a need to hardwire your service. People who I talk to in the industry say the only way you will get a 100-megabit service is by hardwiring your house—you will not get it any other way. So Senator Conroy’s derision at the media for highlighting this is not justified, according to the industry and also my constituent who made the inquiry. That constituent had to plug a category 6 cable into the modem in the garage and run it through the garage, down the hallway and into his office—and he is now getting 48 megabits per second. So he has another great fashion accessory: a category 6 cable running down his hallway at home so that he can actually get from the NBN the service that he bought. He said that, if there is more than 15 metres between the modem and the computer, he is in real trouble as far as capacity is concerned. At his business, where he has everything connected right next to his computer, he is as happy as Larry.

These are the sorts of things the government is not telling people, and I think they ought to. They ought to come clean with the Australian people in respect of their information. It is obvious the information that is going to be released after the parliament has risen and we have had an opportunity to scrutinise this further is going to be restricted. There will be a lot of black marks in the business plan. That is a real disappointment. The Australian people deserve better than that. They deserve to be told what the process is going to be and what the costings are. There are a lot of questions the government can practically answer. For example, what is it going to cost for my telephone line to be converted to fibre? If I currently have an ADSL service on copper and by the magic of the NBN it is converted to fibre—I have not asked for this magnificent new service, but it is coming—how much more is it going to cost me? What is the wholesale cost of the NBN versus the existing network? That is a reasonable question for people to ask. If I was happy with an ADSL2+ service, whatever the speed provided me, and I am compulsorily moved across to a different service, what are the cost implications of that going to be, and what will that do to my home budget? The government has not asked any of these questions. It certainly has not answered any of these questions.

I am not talking about what the providers are charging. In Tasmania that is absolutely no guide, because the government is giving it away. As Senator Macdonald said earlier, the government is getting absolutely no revenue out of the NBN in Tasmania because, by their own admission—and let’s accept that it is an introductory offer, going perhaps until July next year—they are not charging for it. So the prices that are being charged are not real. What are the prices going to be after July next year, and what are they going to do to the take-up rate of the NBN? What speeds will people be able to afford? We want a number of answers. All we are asking is for the government to come clean.

Debate interrupted.