Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to contribute to this debate on the production of documents relating to the NBN. We have heard some extremely interesting contributions from the opposition benches this morning. I think one of the most important things that have been said was Senator Joyce’s statement that the real reason the opposition are opposing this important consumer and competition safeguard legislation is that the coalition believe that Labor won the election on the back of the NBN. In essence, they will pick it apart on the basis that it secured electoral support for us. Let us examine the logic of this.

The opposition are opposing Labor’s plans for the NBN because they believe the nation subscribed to the vision and it helped us win the election. Where is the logic in that? I do not know where it is, but it starts to explain why the arguments we have heard in this debate and on other occasions about their position on the NBN are so inconsistent, so fractious and so devoid of any logic whatsoever.

I think it is plausible that indeed it is not about the issue of substance, about the policy per se, about the fact that the National Broadband Network will deliver a universal, wholesale only, open access network with fibre-to-the-premises for the whole of Australia. The substance of the matter is that the opposition are opposing it for opposition’s sake. It was only with a little provocation that Senator Joyce was able to reveal this to the chamber, and I think it sits underneath the inconsistencies in the opposition’s arguments. I would like to go through some of them.

I will turn first to what I think Senator Conroy described as opposition members ‘talking through both sides of their mouth’ in relation to the NBN. We know Mr Abbott supports the NBN in Tasmania, but opposition members come into this place and the other place and argue against it. I would like to refer directly a little later to Senator Humphries’s statements of support for the National Broadband Network in the Australian Capital Territory, but before I do that I think it is also important to recognise the opposition’s obstructionism on these bills.

We have never heard the opposition challenge the viability or necessity of a fibre-to-the-home network with any credibility. We have heard fractious arguments about wireless somehow being suitable. Those arguments have been completely demolished. We know wireless is not scalable. We know it is not able to deliver the future-proof network and the increasing bandwidth required to serve our future needs. So those arguments are insubstantive and have been proven to be incorrect. There is no counterpoint to a fibre-to-the-home network being the best future-proof technology to deliver the National Broadband Network. There is no argument about that.

There is no argument about the need for a high-bandwidth network for Australia. We know it forms the heart of the economic and social infrastructure of the future. We ought to be very proud as a nation that the National Broadband Network policy closes the digital divide once and for all. I have never heard the opposition argue that we should not close the digital divide. In fact, I recall through every year of their period in government their arguing that they were trying to do that with their flimsy 10 or so different plans to support broadband in this country. They claimed to have the aspiration of closing the digital divide; they just could not achieve it because they never got their policy settings right. They were hopelessly compromised by their higher order agenda to sell Telstra and optimise the share price, to the disbenefit of every telecommunications consumer, whether in the residential or the business market, in this country.

There is a reason Australia has been paying the highest prices for ADSL you could possibly conceive in any comparable nation, and that is that the coalition in government kept those prices high because of their poor policy and their willingness to sustain a residual monopoly in Telstra’s interest for the purpose of the share price. So we inherited a telecommunications network in this country that had no hope of serving our future needs. Telstra themselves and later the government conceded that the existing network was five minutes to midnight—it had reached capacity. We know that because we are talking to the people who are on the waiting lists for humble ADSL in the outer suburbs and the inner-city high-rises and the regional areas of this country. We are talking to them and we know the fervour and the passion and the interest there is for a national broadband network that is future proof, that is fibre to the home—and that is what Labor delivered in the election. So I return to Senator Joyce’s argument. This is what is motivating the opposition: they do not like that Australia subscribes to this grand vision. They do not like the fact that they may have lost the election because they refused to support this vision. Whether that is true or not, the fact remains that they are doing everything they possibly can now to unpick and undermine Labor’s efforts to deliver a universal broadband network to all Australians.

In this chamber their obstructionism is as shallow as it is extreme. Every piece of legislation that has come forth in this place has been confronted by this kind of debate. They do not want to debate the substantive issue because they cannot. They do not have the depth of knowledge or understanding about the National Broadband Network and they do not want to be put on the spot to debate the technical aspects of the bills. Why? Because it is easier to argue that we do not debate it. It is easier to put up furphies about the release of information every step of the way rather than debate the substantive issue, because they know the substantive issue is something that the whole of Australia desires, regardless of what they try and say about the National Broadband Network.

The obstructionism came with the expert panel report, later the ACCC report to government, the McKinsey implementation study, the clamouring for a cost-benefit analysis and now the business case, which the minister has said will be released when it is able to be considered fully—as it should be—by government, but yet they persist in here. I cannot fathom why we are debating this motion rather than the bill itself. If we were debating the bill itself, the opposition would have to be called up on whether or not they supported it. They do not want to have that debate. They do not quite want to be called up on having to oppose a competition and consumer safeguards bill, so they construct this open-ended debate instead. It is a tactic, and we have it seen before. It has been successful in this place because of its obstructionism. They are hiding behind an unwillingness to debate the actual policy of competition and consumer safeguards that facilitate the model that will underpin telecommunications in the future.

I would like to go to the issue of the NBN reference in the bill. This is another complete furphy and clearly just a filler argument so the coalition have some kind of cover and something to say in this debate. The competition and consumer safeguards bill relates primarily to the overall telecommunications network. It mentions the NBN in relation to the agreement with Telstra and has a bearing on it. But for Senator Joyce to come in here and try and say that this is somehow not reflective of the bill or that the minister misrepresented the bill is a complete furphy and shows that the coalition cannot even be bothered to understand the issues of substance in the bill or is unable to present a cohesive argument one way or the other about the competition and consumer safeguards requirements in the bill. It shows that there is lack of capacity or an unwillingness to talk about the policy issues and the provisions of the bill per se. I think it is shallow and it exposes them as not being serious about the issues of substance in the bill.

I would like to turn to the issue of how residents and small businesses around the country feel about the National Broadband Network, because I think this places a great responsibility on the coalition to reassess their position. We already know that they talk out of both sides of their mouth on this. They say one thing out in the constituency, where communities are clamouring for the Broadband Network to come to their region. In here, as we heard from Senator Joyce, they say that no-one wants it, that it is unnecessary and that it is not worth the spend.

Let me quote something from Senator Humphries. Gungahlin was mentioned by Minister Conroy, and quite rightly, because Gungahlin is a quintessential suburban area that suffered through the Howard years, with extremely poor telecommunications as a result of their policy neglect. Gungahlin is a suburban area of Canberra that is served by RIM technology. This has an inhibiting effect on the availability of ADSL services and, unfortunately, it is indicative of many of the newer growth areas right around Australia. Senator Humphries, I presume, will continue to vote with the coalition here against the legislation for the Broadband Network, against the legislation for the consumer and competition safeguards that are associated with the whole of the telecommunications industry. But just listen to this. This is a press release from Senator Humphries from this year, 8 July 2010. This was put out at the same time as the coalition were saying that they were going to oppose the National Broadband Network. Wait for the headline:

CONROY BOWS TO PRESSURE FROM HUMPHRIES

ACT Liberal Senator Gary Humphries, who has been fighting for better access to broadband in Gungahlin, has welcomed today’s announcement by Labor but says there’s still a long way to go.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced this afternoon that 14 locations across Australia, including Gungahlin, that would be among the first to host the National Broadband Network.

Here’s a quote from Senator Humphries:

After almost 3 years of neglect and cut after cut to our community, my longstanding campaign for broadband in Gungahlin has finally cut through …

‘My’ longstanding campaign! Senator Humphries puts his heart and soul in writing and claims credit for the National Broadband Network coming to Gungahlin.

This is quite astounding on two fronts. The first is Senator Humphries claiming any credit at all to do with the National Broadband Network or campaigning for Gungahlin, given his deathly silence through the years of the coalition’s neglect on broadband issues in Gungahlin. But it is most astounding in the context of this debate, where the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Abetz, followed by Senator Barnaby Joyce, claimed that there is no reason why we should be making this investment. Senator Humphries is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, because he is party to the views espoused by his leaders in this place and the other place. As far as we know, it is still Mr Abbott’s intention to tear down the National Broadband Network. Senator Humphries, like every Liberal Party member and like every National Party member who speak out of both sides of their mouth—out of one side to their electorate and out of the other side in here—are now completely and utterly exposed.

It is no wonder that the electorate get frustrated by debates like this. It is no wonder that they hear the issues as they are debated here and say that the coalition has got it wrong on the NBN. It is no wonder that Senator Joyce’s theory that the NBN may have been the decisive factor in the last election is upsetting the coalition so much. We, the Labor government, know, more than anything else, that what is important for this nation is building future-proof economic and social infrastructure that will serve our future needs. I find it absolutely amazing, as I think the vast majority of Australians do, to have an opposition so passionate about not achieving a necessary vision for this country.

The opposition are so passionate in their desire to unpick the very policy that solves a problem of their creation. So keen are they to try and pull apart our policy that they are not even prepared to come in here and debate the bill, the issue of substance. They want to continually move motions to defer debate, to place absurd conditions on the debate in this chamber, such as the order for the production of documents. They are documents which the minister has stated will be provided in due course, when we have had the opportunity—and I believe we have the obligation and the responsibility—to do what we need to do as a government in reviewing that material.

The other issue that I think it is important to turn to in the little time that I have left is the misleading information that the coalition continue to bring in here about the signing-up rate. I get consistent requests from my constituency saying, ‘When are we going to get it?’ I know how warmly welcomed the inclusion of Gungahlin in the next series of rollout sites was and I know that the sign-up rates are incredibly impressive. It showed that there is a complete lack of knowledge when Senator Abetz—I think it was—said, ‘But they’re only signing up for the 25 megabit per second rate, not the 100 megabits per second.’ The whole point of fibre is that you can increase the bandwidth on the same infrastructure. Twenty-five megabits per second may well be what suits consumers now, but I know plenty of consumers, including home based businesses and small businesses, who want a lot more than that, and I know that in 10, 15, 20, 30 or 50 years time the same fibre that is currently delivering what the market wants, whether that is 25 megabits per second or 100 megabits per second, will be able to deliver a gigabit per second—the same piece of fibre.

We are not talking about one of the short-term, stop-gap measures that we saw under the coalition government over their 13-year period in government; we are talking about a network that is future-proof for the vast majority of Australians. We are talking about a network that will ensure that those who the fibre will not reach will be adequately serviced by an affordable high bandwidth through terrestrial wireless or satellite. And those technologies continue to develop at a rate of knots. The jury is in on fibre to the home as being the most scalable future-proof type of network we could possibly invest in.

For Senator Joyce to stand up here and make simplistic arguments associating the expenditure on this infrastructure with other government initiatives is ridiculous in the extreme and shows a shallow—I would not want to insult children—and childlike approach to this debate that exposes their lack of willingness to engage on the detailed policy substance of both the vision for universal connectivity and the mechanisms contained in this and other bills to facilitate it happening.

I am so proud to be part of a Labor government that has been able to articulate this vision and implement this policy for a National Broadband Network. It is being built in this country right now. The fact that we need to go through a painful, unnecessary, politically motivated—thank you, Senator Joyce, for making that clear to all of us—debate in this chamber again and again and again shows that this opposition cares not about the future of this country, this opposition cares not about our economic prospects, it cares not about the social policy outcome of closing the digital divide, and it cares not about the long-term future of our country in this regard and this aspect of microeconomic reform. What it does care about is the shallow attempts to stifle a bill for the purpose of being seen to have something to say on the National Broadband Network. They cannot tackle it on the issues of substance so they need to have something to say, and that has arrived in the form of this absurd obstructionism. I would much rather be presenting my speech in the debate on the second reading of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2010; that is what I ought to have spent the last 20 minutes talking about. I may well say similar things but it would be a much more constructive approach and suit the needs of all Australians for us to be debating that bill right now and not this ridiculous motion that seeks to prevent the debating of the bills of substance.