Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

You want to know what we will do with the report? That is the question here. What will people do with the report? They will be a damned sight better informed than they are. They will be a hell of a lot better informed than they are now, because there will be an independent, expert, robust analysis of whether you guys are heading down the right track or whether you are just taking billions of dollars of Australian taxpayers’ money and throwing it up against the wall, when there could be far more affordable, effective means to deliver this outcome that you have not examined—options you have not looked at. Why have you not looked at these options? What are you afraid of?

In the end, a PC inquiry will produce a report, and do you know what? If that report is utterly damning of your National Broadband Network, do you know what you can do? You can ignore it. That is right; you can ignore it, because there is nothing binding about a PC report. Your government, and governments before it, have ignored PC reports before. It has been done many times before. So you could ignore its findings. But what we would do, what I would hope Senator Xenophon would do, what I would hope Senator Fielding would do, what I would hope the Australian Greens would do and what I would hope the entire Australian public with an interest in this topic would do is analyse the report and make a fair assessment of whether we are on the right track or whether this government, a government that has delivered failure after failure in so many policy areas to date, is simply now embarking on the greatest policy failure of all—the most expensive policy failure in its three years to date. That is the real risk. That is the risk that Australians have to bear.

We know, from the shabby 36-page business plan summary you released, that the taxpayer is up for $27.1 billion, $27.1 billion that it has to tip in for the building of this National Broadband Network—more than you originally said. So the taxpayer is up, already, for at least a billion dollars more than the figure stated in the implementation study and more than the figure stated by Senator Conroy when he first announced this proposal. At that stage, I remember that proposal as being a fifty-fifty split, where you had 50 per cent government equity and the other 50 per cent was going to come from private investors.

Whatever happened to the private investors, Senator Conroy, in your National Broadband Network? Because now we learn that anything required above that $27.1 billion is going to come from debt raising. So, from day one, the 100 per cent government owned NBN entity will no longer have private investors; it will go out into the marketplace and raise all of its debt. So every single dollar of the billions of dollars that will be spent building this network will come from debt, either from the government’s massive debt or NBN Co.’s debt, all of which comes back to the Australian taxpayer. That is why the opposition believes that we need a fair dinkum, robust analysis of the costs and benefits of this proposal and a fair dinkum, robust analysis of whether there is a better way to get the NBN built. We think the government is being utterly reckless in continuing to pursue this policy without any knowledge as to whether it is in fact the best policy to be pursued at all.

I note that Senator Xenophon uttered words previously in support of a Productivity Commission inquiry. He said that he believes there is real merit in the Productivity Commission being involved in the process. In considering this amendment I appeal to you, Senator Xenophon, and to all of the crossbenchers: you know this is the right thing to do; you know that there is no harm in the PC undertaking an inquiry. No harm whatsoever can come of this amendment. All it will do is better inform the debate by 31 May next year. It will not block or delay this bill, it will not block or delay the NBN and it will not even force the government to change track. All it will do is ensure that, if they are on the wrong track, pressure will come to bear on them to change their track. That is all it will do. It will better inform your decision making, it will better inform our decision making and, hopefully, it will better inform the government’s decision making.

I beg you to please consider this amendment as something that will not do any harm but provide a real good—a real good in terms of a thorough analysis of how we will get fast and affordable broadband services for the future. What you need to consider is whether the deals you have made with the government are actually worth compromising your positions on this PC inquiry. To Senator Xenophon in particular, I note the agreement you have struck with the government for the setting up of a joint standing committee. Regrettably, that joint standing committee does not take effect until 1 July next year. The PC’s involvement there is, regrettably, only to provide some advice and to inform that joint standing committee. That will not provide the type of analysis of whether or not this is the best way forward. It will not provide what we require for Australia to get the best outcome.

I am sure that, deep down, you know that, Senator Xenophon. You have managed to negotiate, from your perspective, reasonable outcomes with the government on all the other matters of concern. That is perfectly fair and reasonable, but on this matter you have not negotiated a reasonable outcome. The proposed joint standing committee will still end up being largely dominated by the government. It will not even start its work until 1 July next year. I note that my colleague Senator Fisher—with the cooperation of others, I trust—will be moving an amendment to the motion to adopt the committee’s report to ensure that at least the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee can get on with some work. But none of those things are substitutes for the Productivity Commission inquiry and for real robust work. On many other occasions, Senator Xenophon, you have paid great heed to the workings of the Productivity Commission and you have recognised the ability of Gary Banks and his team to provide fair, impartial and rational advice to governments, to the parliament and to the Australian community. That is all we are asking for them to do on this occasion.

To the Greens, to Senator Fielding, I make the same pitch: you really should consider whether, in voting against this amendment, you are simply voting against something that could further enhance what Australia gets at the end of the day. Voting for this amendment would not put you on side with the opposition in opposing the NBN; it would simply put you on side with the opposition in saying that we want to get the best outcome for Australia. And, if the best outcome is the government’s NBN, if that is what the Productivity Commission says, we will wear it. We will wear what the Productivity Commission says and, of course, we will wear the words that we have spoken arguing against the NBN to date.

But, if the Productivity Commission comes back with an alternative, you will wear it. You will wear it if the Productivity Commission comes back saying that there is a lower cost way. Senator Conroy believes there is absolutely no possible lower cost way that this can be done. Senator Conroy, you are the one who flipped from thinking, just a year or so ago, that 12 megabits per second was effective to thinking, now, that we need 100 megabits per second. You did that without any decent cost-benefit analysis, and, in the process, you have put billions of extra taxpayer dollars on the line.

So my plea to the chamber is: accept this amendment as a sensible way to provide a real analysis of where this government is going. This government is spending billions of dollars of taxpayer money. It is empowering a 100 per cent government owned entity to borrow billions of dollars of taxpayer money to roll a network up and down every street of Australia, including those that already have very fast broadband services. If we want to get value for money for Australians and we want fast, universal access to broadband, we should have the right policy approach, and we should test it. This amendment will allow the Australian community to test the government’s policy. (Time expired)